It is good to see hectic moves of the Dhaka Water and Sewerage Authority (DWASA) in digging well-metalled roads of the capital to put in place sewerage lines. At least, the authority has at long last stepped in to look after the citizens' water needs.
But the areas of well-built roads where their workers dug are still left unattended. Good roads are now set to turn out to be big headache for citizens again as there appears to be none to repair those.
Take for example the Lal Fokirer Mazar Road in Kalabagan of the capital. Hundreds of residents had suffered for long four years. The elected ward commissioner and the local member of parliament, who used to visit the area frequently just before elections were reported not have received even aggrieved phone calks from some of the sufferers.
A rickshaw journey across the Lal Fikirer Mazar Road had even posed a serious hazard to health of the elderly and the sick because of 'ups and downs' caused by potholes. It was a nightmare still being remembered by the locals.
The administrator of the Dhaka South City Corporation was implored by residents of Kalabagan to do something for the road. He was even told that hundreds would pray for him in mosques once he had the road rebuilt. He was also requested by a close aide of the prime minister to do the needful. Finally, the road was rebuilt with strong carpeting.
But sadly, the Lal Fokirer Mazar Road is not to remain as it is now. Big potholes have again been created by the DWASA men while digging it for sewerage lines. The contractor said point blank on Wednesday when asked: "It's not our headache as to what happens to the road. We're here to do what we have been asked to do."
The road mentioned is not alone to suffer immeasurably. Hundreds of good lanes and by-lanes are facing the same fate. Road users are to suffer and vehicles are to crawl there. Only some parts of the lanes are usable and those too are damaged at places. Yet, the Dhaka city corporation concerned is yet to wake up from slumber.
In repairing dug-up roads, the authorities allegedly make deliberate delays or resort to substandard patch-ups to have expensive repairs later on, opening the window for greater financial irregularities. The uncalled-for miseries caused to the city dwellers while they make delays and do dodgy repairs seem to come second on the priority list.
People generally blame utility service providers, like the WASA and Titas gas, for digging up roads but it is actually the city corporations which are responsible for restoring the roads as soon as the utility service providers are done with it. Any agency digging up a road pays the city corporation concerned for the repairs up front.
Road-building experts say that the delays are deliberate so that the road condition worsens and the city corporations have to spend more on the repairs. According to Prof Md Shamsul Hoque of the BUET, the delay is deliberate with a corrupt motive, as it allows widening small road cracks into gaping holes and entails sizeable repair expenditure. The larger the expenditure the bigger the opportunity for financial misappropriation since maintenance work has no engineering drawing.
Restoration of a road after letting gaping holes to develop is a contractor-oriented approach and is not an engineering practice, said Prof Hoque, adding that the professional approach to deal with road damage is to arrest cracks before they turn into gaping holes.
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