A substantial volume of public money spent every year on the construction of a number of bridges goes down the drain as the latter are found to be not compatible with the existing roads and also with the designs.
Now that there have been faster internal mobility and regional connectivity, the call is getting louder for quicker remedies to set things straight in this import sector of road communications.
Sources said for the reasons of planning mistakes and mismatches, these jerry-built bridges are turning unfit or lying unutilized for traffic movement within a short span of time after construction.
The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) under the Ministry of Communications (MoC) and the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) under the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development (LGRD) construct bridges of different sizes, measuring up to 1.49 kilometres.
Sources said in most of the cases bridges constructed by the two authorities cannot take the load of traffic on the existing roads or become mismatch with nearby roads.
"It is often found that a single-lane bridge is constructed nearby a regional road or near a big river with a long bridge where traffic volume is high," said an official of the RHD to point at the Achilles' heel.
He said some bridges are so poorly designed and built that those cannot take the load of a jeep or do not have clearance even for a small boat.
Besides, the two agencies plan construction of bridges at the same location as many roads have been duplicated due to use of different names.
Experts are of the opinion that in the present context, traffic volume on all kinds of roads in the country is on the increase due to expansion of trade and business and connectivity within the country and with neighbouring countries.
For that reason, they suggested constructing bridges maintaining minimum standards and longevity to avert waste of government money.
Per-kilometre construction of a two-lane bridge costs between Tk 120 million and Tk 150 million, they pointed out.
The LGED constructs bridges on upazila, union and village-level roads, and in most of the cases those are single-lane with no pavement structure.
But the RHD is responsible for constructing national, regional and district-level bridges below 1.5 kilometres. These bridges have no less than two lanes.
Usually the LGED constructs the bridges on their assigned road and the RHD at their location.
Apart from the two agencies, Bangladesh Bridges Authority (BBA) under the MoC is assigned for the bridge construction beyond 1.5 kilometres in length.
Among all these categories of bridges, sources said, bigger- sized ones are designed following rules and regulations that provide for feasibility study for site selection for the highest benefit of the country.
However, LGED and RHD officials said they have to carry hydro- morphology study and get horizontal and vertical clearance from the BIWTA (Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority) while designing a bridge in any of their assigned locations.
The problem of inconsistency in the bridge planning was discussed during a meeting held at the Prime Minister's Office. But it ended sans any decision.
The meeting identified duplication of around 70 roads as those are located on both RHD and LGED maps and many bridges on those roads have been planned from both sides.
PMO meeting sources said the matters of demarcation of roads and bridges were also discussed in the meeting and task was given to the Planning Commission to set a standard, like constructing bridges not beyond two lanes.
However, experts said, as the government has already declared decision to upgrade existing two-lane highways into four-lane ones throughout the country, these bridges--wherever they are located--must meet the demand of the future.
They also pointed out that regional connectivity and the Asian Highway have already raised the demand for road expansion, so for bridges, to meet the future traffic demand.
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