Every year budget allocation is being increased for developing infrastructures such as roads and highways.Over the last nine years over 460 billion taka was spent in the construction and development of roads and highways. In the 2017-18 fiscal, over 937crore was spent in this sector.
However, despite this huge expenditure, the country’s roads and highways remain in shambles. According to the World Bank’s Bangladesh Development Update 2019, Bangladesh falls behinds all South Asian countries except Nepal when it comes to the quality of roads. Bangladesh scores 35.2 out of 100 in this regard, above only Nepal’s score of 27. Sri Lanka scored 46.7, India 57.4 and Pakistan 49.1 points. Where overall infrastructure is concerned, Bangladesh stands at 109 among 140 countries. The central road research report also provides a poor report on the road system. The government’s Highway Development and Maintenance (HDM) reports say that there are 2,528 km of ‘weak’ roads, 1, 282 km of ‘bad’ roads and 1,843 km of ‘very bad’ roads in the country. Experts feel the use of low quality material in the construction and repair of the roads has led to this predicament.
Nepal has a hilly terrain where it is difficult to construct durable roads. But Bangladesh is almost entirely flat land, expect for the three hill districts. If the roads are so dilapidated, the responsibility lies with the roads and highways department. The corruption and irregularities in the sector are obvious. Experts say that many conditions required for road construction are ignored. Lack of proper maintenance also weakens the road network. The World Bank report correctly stated that huge allocations for the development of roads and highways are not enough. Maintenance of the existing infrastructure must be ensured too. There is always a flurry of repairs before the two Eids and during the rainy season. The excuse is that the authorities do not release the funds in time. This is hardly a credible excuse. Contractors often intentionally delay the work to push up costs and they reportedly are in collusion with certain officials involved in the related projects.
Bangladesh’s road construction costs are much higher than in neighbouring countries. The government claims that land acquisition costs are high, pushing up total construction expenditure. This may be partially true, but not entirely. Labour is extremely cheap. Local construction material is also relatively low priced. Thus, there is no reason for such unreasonably exorbitant costs in road and bridge construction, other than corruption. Every year the demand for transport goes up by 10 per cent and this requires further development of the road network. But excessive dependence on the roads must be reduced. At one time rivers and railway were the main mode of communication in the country.
These modes of communication must be developed in addition to the roads in order to meet the present day’s burgeoning demands. Corruption and irregularities must be clamped down upon in order to bring transparency and accountability in road construction and repairs. Bidding for a government contract to build or repair roads in Bangladesh can be a matter of life or death, literally. Pitched battles frequently erupt between rival contractors, who are backed by political parties and their thugs. Newspapers are filled with stories of gun fights, tender boxes seized by gangs and government offices torched on the day bids are submitted for contracts .
45 people were injured, four critically, in the north central town of Sirajganj –sometime ago– when rival bidders fought on the deadline day to block each other from submitting tenders for a 1.8 million Taka earth moving contract. The sum is nothing very big but that even such sums are fought over with loss of lives. The conflict spilled into the streets and stores were looted. Police used shot guns, baton charges and 16 rounds of tear gas before they called for help from a neighbouring police force to break up the mob and regain control of the town. Ten people were injured a few weeks earlier and the police station set on fire in the northern town of Lalmonirhat when rival gangs members fought over collecting bridge tolls. Police fired tear gas and charged with batons to break up the battle, and the police station was set on fire.
Such clashes are especially common in Bangladesh’s road construction sector. “It’s big corruption. The roads and highway division of the government is a sea of corruption,” said Prof. Muinul Islam of Department of Economics, University of Chittagong. The corruption in the road construction and maintenance sector is so awful that immediate deep and driving and cleansing measures need to be carried out against the same at the soonest.
