Munima Sultana
Over two-thirds of the national highways studied by the state-run Roads and Highways Department (RHD) to upgrade to four-lane ones are now at the investment stage.
The department completed studies on 1,752 kilometres of highways in the first phase to turn the main artery into the four-lane ones in 2015 to facilitate increased traffic movement.
It is now studying 590 km roads in the second phase.
The four-lane roads are claimed to reduce the number of accidents on the national highways in Bangladesh, which is considered one of the highest in the world.
Officials said, of the studied national highways, RHD can bring over 900 kilometres of roads into the investment stage after getting the fund from development partners and the government.
The rest are in the pipeline for investments by development partners, they added.
Though the RHD has completed four-lane work on more than 250 km national highways, including Dhaka-Chattogram and Dhaka-Mymensingh routes, accidents on those roads still occur due to reckless driving.
However, RHD officials said the studied highways are designed, attaching importance to road safety.
These roads will have two-lane separate routes for slow moving vehicles and flyover, overpass or tunnels to ensure connectivity across the road.
RHD completed the feasibility study along with detailed design on 1,752 kilometres with the assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under the South-Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Road Connectivity project.
RHD officials said, of the investment project, the work on 70 km Joydevpur-Tangail highway will be completed within a year.
Besides, the tender process for the projects to construct 190.4 km Elenga-Rangpur highway and 127.89 km Rangpur-Teesta-Burimari roads is now in progress. All these projects are funded by the ADB.
The four-lane work on Ashuganj-Sorail-Brahmanbaria road has been processed under the Indian Line of Credit while 214.55 km Dhaka-Sylhet and 136 km Chattogram-Cox's Bazar-Teknaf route with the government's own fund.
An official involved with the study said apart from the studied road, RHD has made progress in starting the Bhanga-Jessore-Benapole road under the Indian credit line on a priority basis, though its study is underway under the second phase of the feasibility study on 590 km national highways.
"The selection of the roads and the design and planning were done considering the regional corridor. For this reason, the provision of access control on the corridors gets the highest priority," he told the FE.
RHD officials said 236 km Faridpur-Barisal-Kuakata road is now in the pipeline of the ADB for investment in 2022 while the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is also studying the scope for investments in the RHD projects.
The roads connecting the southwestern region, including Mongla Port are also under consideration of another development partner.
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