Nineteen per cent of the road sector projects under the ministry of road transport and bridges (MoRTB) showed zero progress in the first half of the current fiscal year (FY).
Due to the zero progress of the projects, overall performance of the Road Transport and Highways Division under the ministry in the annual development programme recorded only 28.30 per cent until January which is far below the national average of 32 per cent.
Sources said the Planning Commission already called the project directors of the 22 non-performing projects recently and wanted to know the causes and problems for non- implementation of those.
Officials, however, said the meeting was the part of the Planning Commission's regular meeting held after the first half of the fiscal year to review the ADP progress of all ministries.
Some important projects-improvement of road safety at black spot, Chalna bridge over the Modhumati river, Teknaf-Shahpori connectivity road, bypass road for Kushtia town, Patuakhali-Kuakata road at Khepupara - were among the zero performing projects.
The government identified 144 black spots on the national highways and included the improvement of road safety at black spot projects in the current fiscal year with an allocation of Tk 100 million.
Roads and Highways Department (RHD) officials said many of the 22 projects could not perform for not receiving timely revision of the development project proposal and land acquisition problem.
A senior official said the government took a decision not to allocate any fund until land acquisition of ADP listed projects is done.
"As these kinds of projects are enlisted in the ADP, we have to keep the projects running by showing a nominal allocation like Tk 0.1 million and more. But we know these projects will not be able to perform due to land acquisition and DPP revision problems," said the official.
The official explained that completion of land acquisition work in the country is very complicated and very often causes delay in the implementation of a project for years due to legal hassles by the land owners.
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