It is quite frustrating that the country has been able to upgrade only four per cent of its highways to four-lane ones during the last ten years. Even if the Dhaka-Chittagong and the Dhaka-Mymensingh four-lane highway projects are completed within the next one year, it will only be only eight per cent of the total. According to available data, out of a total 3,813 kilometres of national highways, around 160 kms are of four lanes. Conversion of all the existing two-lane highways into four lanes will be a distant dream if the present poor pace of work continues.
As this paper reported last Friday, no headway in infrastructure development, particularly in roads and highways sector, could be made so far, notwithstanding the oft-repeated commitment of the government to expediting its pace. Limited policy and institutional reforms have been attributed to slowdown in road the pace of this development. Unless infrastructure development is accelerated, it will be difficult for the country to boost its global competitiveness and to attract the much-needed domestic as well as foreign investment.
Well-developed road infrastructure is considered in most developing countries a vital input for their speedy economic development. It enhances a country's productivity, consequently making businesses more competitive. Infrastructure in itself helps raise the efficiency of production, transportation, and communication. This also provides substantive economic incentives to investors. Accessibility to it as well as its improved quality help shape domestic investment decisions and attract foreign investors.
The country has otherwise made progress in improving its competitiveness ratings, most visibly in electricity supply. But inter-country comparative infrastructure indicators among the Asian economies reflects Bangladesh’s stark deficiencies, in areas of the quality of infrastructure. Other Asian countries, except Myanmar, are ahead of it. Even Pakistan, which ranks below in overall inter-country competitiveness, scores better than Bangladesh in the quality of roads and port infrastructure.
If Bangladesh wants to get out of the six-per cent growth trap, it, as a World Bank study suggests, has to implement quickly key projects like Dhaka-Chittagong and Dhaka-Mymensingh highways. There is also the need for quick implementation of other projects such as upgradation of Dhaka-Chittagong railway line into double track and construction of Dhaka Metro Rail and the Padma Bridge.
The country’s highways and roads are in a sorry state due to substandard work of contractors, incessant rainfall during the monsoon and slow pace of work on the four-lane projects. And bad shape of its highways is also one of the key reasons behind frequent road accidents. Annual action plans for maintenance and repair of roads and highways, priority development programmes for their improvement and regular updating of the list of accident-prone ‘black spots’, deserve a befitting attention from the policymakers. For addressing such multi-pronged needs, both adequate budgetary resource allocation and a quantum leap in implementation capacity, are of critical importance for expediting the process of infrastructure development in this vital sector.
