Different government agencies have allegedly been engaged in misappropriation of funds through duplication of road-development works across the country, informed sources said Friday about the drain on public money.
A number of government officials said some 3,669-kilometre-long 74 roads across the country have had duplication of authority among different government agencies. And such mismatch results in poor quality of the road- development works and misuse of public money.
They said some agencies like Roads and Highways Department (RHD), Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED), city corporations and municipalities take similar road projects without proper coordination among themselves. It affects the quality of the infrastructure and proper use of funds.
Duplication of road means a same road claimed by more than one agency about their authority and ownership.
The Planning Commission (PC) has recently taken initiative to avert the duplication in road-development works, a senior Commission official said.
A committee, headed by the Member (infrastructure) of the PC, has been formed to find ways of avoiding the duplication of road works across the country. The committee would also find out the total number of roads claimed by different government agencies.
PC officials said the government has taken the move to update a gazette issued in 2004 on the road ownership aimed at avoidance of such wasteful complications in the development works.
"Sometimes two or more agencies claimed ownership of a same road. They undertake separate projects on its development or maintenance or repair. When more than one agency undertake project on the same road, it is clearly waste of public funds," a top Commission official said.
Besides, such duplication also creates lack of real ownership of the roads, which affects the quality road-maintenance works, he told the FE, requesting anonymity for he is not a spokesperson on this matter.
The official said sometimes two or three agencies take up separate projects for development on the same road. As such, most of the time, those cannot be recognizes by the responsible ministries or the Planning Commission before project approval.
For example, RHD and Chittagong City Corporation are the owners of Dhaka (Jatrabari)-Comilla (Mainamoti)-Chittagong-Teknaf route.
Some 454.59 kilometres of the Dhaka-Teknaf road fall under authority of RHD and the 7.55 kilometres under Chittagong City Corporation, officials at RHD said.
"RHD has got expertise in the national highways. On the other hand, CCC has not proper expertise in the highway affairs. Two agencies on the same road, most of the time, create problem in proper maintenance," he added.
Another official said they had found in the costal areas two agencies having undertaken two separate projects on a same road for its development.
"The monitoring authority might fail to detect that. So, the government allocates funds for the same works for the two projects, which results in total misuse of the public money," he noted as an instance of the tangles.
Transport expert Professor Shamsul Hoque said the duplication of the road- development works is not only wasting the public funds but the quality of road development is also being affected severely.
"When a portion of a road will be given to RHD and another to a city corporation or a municipality or to LGED, it (road) will face crisis of ownership. It must impact on the better development of the road," he told the FE.
Professor Shamsul Hoque, also a teacher of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), said duplication of road projects is tantamount to not only pilferage of money but also degrading their quality development.
"Ownership of a road should be taken by a certain agency which has expertise in that road. For example, big roads like national and regional highways should be given to the RHD rather than handing over to the city corporations, or any other government agencies for that matter," he said.
Prof Hoque maintained that if a road's ownership is not determined perfectly, it will be lacking in proper maintenance as well as ensuring quality operations.
When contacted, RHD chief engineer Mofijul Islam Raj Khan did not respond to this reporter despite repeated attempts through phone.
LGED chief engineer Md Wahidur Rahman declined to talk.
The state-owned road developer, RHD, has had 21,481.25 kms of roads, including 3,544.06km national highways, 4,278.07km regional highways and 13,659.13km district roads, across the country.
LGED, the state-owned rural road developer, has had ownership of 304379.31km roads in upazila and village levels. Of the total, 213330.94 kms are earthen and 83303.41 kms are pavement roads.
Duplication of road ownership costs public exchequer heavily
FHM Humayan Kabir | Published: August 09, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 30, 2026 06:01:00
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