Completing unfinished development works

FE Team | Published: January 19, 2024 20:29:37

Upon assumption of office, a newly elected government's first task is to present before the nation a road map on how it would deliver during its current tenure in office on the promises it made in its election manifesto. As it is often the case, some of the pre-election promises are too ambitious to fulfil within its limited term of office. However, when the new government is a continuation of the previous one, the task of setting the priorities should become easier. It is more so when it comes to infrastructure development works. Notably, the freshly elected Awami League government, in its previous term undertook massive infrastructure development projects, many of which are already completed, while others are not. Of those in the process of being completed, especially among the bridge and road infrastructure projects, include Padma rail link, Bangabandhu Railway Bridge, Dhaka Elevated Expressway, Chattogram Elevated Expressway, BRT Line 3, Dhaka MRT Line 6 (third phase), Dhaka MRT Line 1 (Purbachal Route), Dhaka MRT Line 1 (Airport Route), etc.
But there are also other unfinished big infrastructure projects already approved or those for which proposals have been made and awaiting approval. Now which of the many infrastructure development projects, for instance, of the road transport and bridge ministry will get priority? This is especially at a time when the country is facing challenges like forex reserve shortage and diminished prospects of fresh fund commitments from development partners. Against this backdrop, what the road transport and bridge minister recently told the press about his ministry's approach to the infrastructure projects due for completion during his present term in office sounded sensible and pragmatic. Without being wishful and grandiose, he appeared to be rather intent on completing the existing projects and bridging, what he pointed out, the missing links in the country's infrastructure networks. That means business. There is nothing worse than a half-finished physical infrastructure waiting indefinitely to be completed in the middle of nowhere either due to a lack of fund, or worse, of initiative.
In a similar vein, it is necessary for the network of the infrastructure works that have been built to be seamless to deliver the goods as expected. Otherwise, as experiences go, many big-budget infrastructural works in the past turned out to be pure wastage of public money. So, it is important to ensure that infrastructure networks so built leave no gap between them to draw the maximum benefit out of the public money invested for the purpose.
In this connection, reference has been made to the Padma Multipurpose Bridge, which was opened for traffic in June last year. Needless to say, the Padma Bridge project has proved to be a huge success, as the toll being collected from the bridge's users has, according the road transport and bridge minister's admission, has meanwhile crossed the sum of Tk12.52 billion since its inception. That comes to around Tk20 million daily. However, the other big-budget one, the Karnaphuli Tunnel in Chattogram, thanks to its reported narrow approach road, is yet to see the expected rush from its potential users. Hopefully, the problem would be expeditiously addressed to make the expensive project deliver the desired public good. At this point, the firm commitment that the road transport and bridge ministry has made recently about timely completion of the remaining work of the projects like the Dhaka Elevated Expressway, Dhaka-Ashulia Expressway and the Bus Rapid Transit System is no doubt reassuring. The present government, it is expected, would take a down-to-earth approach to every undertaking, especially for completion of the unfinished development projects.