The New Nation - Internet Edition

Engineer Shafiqul Alam

For the greater benefit as well as existence of the country the development projects should be ongoing at full phase, no matter what is the situation of the politics or which Government is in power. It has already become very difficult to cope with the current world; situation in Bangladesh is going bad to worse day-by-day. If we look at the ministry of communications, one of the most important ministry, the function & objective is questionable.

In the last 22 months during this interim government, what is the achievement in this sector? A tender was floated in 2005-2006 for making Dhaka-Chittagong four lane from existing double lane but due to the discrepancy found in the process the tender process was rejected by this government in 2007. Then another fresh tender was floated accordingly & 10 companies became pre-qualified. The submission of PG was possible within 28 days, when 9 out of 10 companies submitted the PG in 6 days the ministry closed the process. Then the secretary went to award work to 9 companies without the approval from Cabinet Committee for purchase.

The number 10 was disappointed & asked for clarification and the total process became a well-known matter to all. However then the secretary within a few minutes changed the PD of the project & declared cancellation of the tender. The other 9 went to the court for this game of bureaucracy.

Ministry of communication issued the LOI to Azimat consortium for Dhaka-Chittagong expressway but Azimat is sitting idle because if there is four lane, there is no need for expressway but the matter is the proposal for Dhk-Ctg expressway came as a private infra-structure project before the tender of Dhk-Ctg four lane on GOB fund.

Subway project of Contech Ltd was initiated back in 2002 & Cabinet wanted only a NOC from ministry but lot of formalities we have seen. One year has passed to approve from Cabinet (January 2008) & 9 months have already gone but no improvement is there. In the mean time STP is approved but what is the activity? Recently the then Secretary announced after a meeting that feasibility study of the project would be started by December 2008 & by 2013 18 km of metro rail at a cost of 10,000 crore taka would be in operation.

What feasibility has to be done & who told him to construct 18 km in the first phase? Cabinet approved 52 km of metro rail where the largest stretch is 17 km & the total cost was 6,200 crore which would be increased a bit.

The secretary told that due to the bureaucratic wrangling the subway project has been delayed, and then what Mahbubur Rahman did in his tenure of about 2 years?

People of Dhaka are always facing severe traffic congestion, the environment is becoming toxic due to the emission from the motorized vehicles, and roads have become blocked as a result of countless private cars.

On the other hand the ministry is always interested for Dhaka elevated expressway but expressway in a metropolis is only for the highway buses & private cars. Expressway is nothing but a toll-way; so feasibility has to be conducted whether people having personal transport would use toll-way or not.

Development of a country always depends on infrastructures but lack of proper infrastructures is always noticed here. Dhaka is the heart of the country, contributing significant percent to the development of the total country, so it should be made livable as early as possible.

Concept of increasing area of metropolitan is not sensible as it's a small country. By urbanization we are only destroying agricultural lands. That's why the expansion should be vertical but not horizontal. This is also true for metro rail where several complete networks can be made beneath the surface.

There has to be willingness & one has to be proactive as well as better understood of the problems. Considering the immense sufferings of the city dwellers the bureaucratic backbiting should be stopped & "subway" the top priority project should be started as soon as possible.