A number of ministers and state ministers on Sunday castigated communications minister Syed Abul Hossain for the sorry state of roads and highways across the country.
The communications minister came under fire from his colleagues at a weekly cabinet meeting at the secretariat when he attributed the poor condition of the roads to fund constraints.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina chaired the meeting.
Bus service has remained suspended on the Dhaka-Mymensingh route since Thursday, and bus operators in Tangail on Sunday enforced an indefinite strike on the Dhaka-Tangail route, causing untold suffering to commuters.
Syed Abul Hossain attributed the delay in road maintenance and repair to fund constraints. He also blamed the past BNP-Jamaat and caretaker governments for their 'failure' to maintain the road network.
Finance minister AMA Muhith, refuting the communications minister's claims, said that lack of monitoring by the authorities concerned was the main reason behind the sorry condition of the highways.
Abul Hossain said that the roads had not developed potholes overnight. The BNP-Jamaat government and the last caretaker government could not maintain the roads, he added.
'A Tk 14.10 billion project was taken up in January in FY2010-11 for improvement of the road network. Only Tk 1.07 billion has been allocated in the two fiscal years, including Tk 500 million in the current one,' he told the meeting. Shipping minister Shajahan Khan, along with others, expressed concern over the poor maintenance of highways.
Prime minister Sheikh Hasina at the meeting ordered the authorities concerned to take immediate steps to repair the busy highways, connecting Dhaka with other major cities, on a priority basis to restore communications and reduce public suffering.
The prime minister also ordered that effective measures be taken to prevent fatal road accidents, a minister told New Age.
Hasina said that the communications ministry should shift funds from the projects not necessary at this moment to repair of roads to ensure smooth traffic movement on the highways.
Sheikh Hasina told the meeting that she would hold a meeting with the communications minister on Tuesday to speed up the repair of busy highways across the country as hundreds of thousands of people would leave Dhaka before Eid.
The cabinet meeting adopted a condolence motion on the death of internationally acclaimed film director Tareque Masud, ATN News' chief executive officer Ashfaque Munier and three others in a road accident.
A microbus carrying the victims on Saturday collided head-on with a bus on the Dhaka-Aricha Road at Ghior in Manikganj, killing five persons on the spot and injuring three others.
Five persons were killed on the same day in another accident on the Pabna-Nagarbari road.
Abul Hossain told reporters that the condition of the highways had not gone so bad that bus services should be suspended.
He said that the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation was operating buses on all the routes. 'The prime minister has asked us to increase the number of BRTC buses on all these routes so that people do not suffer because of the strike,' he added.
Sunday's meeting sent back the draft of the Bangladesh Water Bill 2011 because, according to the cabinet, it needs certain changes before being enacted into law.
Source : New Age
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