Abysmal condition of major highways coupled with chaotic traffic and reckless driving is causing fatal road accidents turning travels into a nightmare for commuters.
Experts, the highway police, campaigners for road safety, passengers and drivers identified reckless driving, faulty designs and poor maintenance of roads and weak enforcement of traffic rules as the major causes of frequent accidents on highways that claim scores of lives every month.
They said number of traffic accidents could be reduced considerably if speed limits were strictly enforced.
Hundreds of potholes, craters and cracks have developed on the highways because of lack of maintenance and repair for years turning journey into an agonising experience.
Traffic on highways has become so intense and chaotic because of shabby road networks and rise in the number of vehicles, that journey time on every route has doubled over the last four or five years.
The government has attributed the delay in the road maintenance work to fund constraints and 'failures' of the past BNP-Jamaat and caretaker governments to maintain the road networks.
The communications minister, Syed Abul Hossain, said, 'Roads have not turned potholed overnight. The BNP-Jamaat government and the last caretaker government could not maintain the roads.'
Asked about the performance of his government, the minister said, 'A Tk 14.10 billion project was taken in January of 2010-11 fiscal year for improvement of the road network. Only Tk 1.07 billion has been allocated in the two fiscals, including Tk 500 million in the current fiscal.'
He hoped that the finance minister would disburse the rest of the fund soon.
People in the transport sector fear a chaotic situation ahead of Eid-ul Fitr when the number of trips on every route increases by four to five times.
While talking to New Age, Bangladesh Bust-Truck Owners' Welfare Trust chairman GM Siraj said travel time on every route had doubled over the last couple of months due to shabby road networks.
'It has become difficult to operate a bus twice a day on a single route and cuts in the number of trips is causing sufferings to commuters,' Siraj, also a former lawmaker, said.
Fearing a 'terrible situation' on the highways before Eid, he urged the government to repair the roads before people start their journey home to celebrate Eid.
Transport owners operating buses on different routes, including Dhaka-Mymensingh and Dhaka-Tangail have already enforced a strike to press for repair of the roads without further delay.
Not only Dhaka-Tangail and Dhaka-Mymensingh highways, almost all the highways connecting major districts with the capital city are in bad shape due to lack of maintenance.
Potholed highways, which have even large craters at places, are also causing damage to vehicles. At places, craters have appeared on hard shoulders, making the roads dangerous for motorists.
Hundreds of potholes and craters have appeared on a 100-kilometre road stretch from Elenga to Tangail town on Dhaka-Bogra highway, some 40 kilometres stretch near Sitakunda and about 50 kilometres stretch from Chittagong to Baroyerhat on Dhaka-Chittagong highway and 60 kilometres on Jessore-Khulna highway. About two kilometre stretch on Khulna-Satkhira road has gone under water.
Dhaka-Mymensingh highway, which was repaired for the last time in 2005, has turned almost unusable for transports.
People in the transport sector said corruption and nepotism in giving work orders is mainly responsible for poor road repair work.
The World Bank in 2008 declined to disburse a fund for improvement of Dhaka-Mymensingh road citing corruption in the sector as the reason.
A number of engineers of Roads and Highways Department alleged that most of the work orders for road rehabilitation had been given to the ruling party men having no experience in carrying out such tasks.
Officials of Roads and Highway Department under the communications ministry said they had identified a total of 20,000 kilometres of road stretch that required immediate repairs.
They also pointed out that the fund of Tk14.10 billion allocated last year for the project 'Emergency Rehabilitation of Damaged Roads' was not adequate.
Source : New Age
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