Ensuring even growth in capital city and districts
Friday, 17 April 2009
PHYSICAL communication infrastructures as existing in the country until now are inadequate and cannot meet the growing needs of the country. The railway, for example, is in a dilapidated condition. If truth be told, the major part of the railway network that still connects different parts of the country was built during the colonial times. Even after independence, the state of this most efficient and speediest form of communication, far from improving, deteriorated mostly due to poor management and lack of attention. In fact, it was the motorways that got the highest attention from the governments of the past. Naturally, the railway in its present state cannot be a match for what one finds in neighbouring India, let alone in the other highly advanced countries of the world. On the other hand, despite the relatively better attention they received, the roads and the highways, too, have not been able to achieve any enviable status to stimulate economic growth of the nation at the expected level. The situation of the waterways is no better, while the state of the airway is least said the better. This is in sum the overall picture of the roads and railways of the country.
The communication network of the capital city is strained to its limits. The city cannot simply hold its present population. Its highways, lanes and by-lanes are coming apart at the seams under pressure of the notorious traffic hell. The number of arterial roads in the city is few. Numberless smaller roads intersect those major highways all over the city. Hence is all the chaos and snarl-ups at those intersections. Two make things worse-- fast and slow moving vehicles use the same highways and smaller roads. Intolerable traffic jams are created as a result during peak as well as non-peak hours. Moreover, the number of both motorised and non-motorised vehicles is increasing by leaps and bounds.
The situation has not only increased suffering of the commuters, the slowed down traffic is also making transfer of goods and people from one place to another costlier. The governments that come and go made no end of promises to improve the situation, but so far precious little could be achieved. Against this backdrop, the prime minister the other day announced this government's plans to develop the railway communication of the country, establish commuter train services between the capital city and the adjacent districts, construct underpasses, expressways, ring road around the city, etc., to ease the city's traffic movement and build better roads. She also unveiled her government's plans to connect Bangladesh with the Asian Highway and the Trans Asian Railway to develop the country's connectivity with the rest of the world.
Similarly, developing communication between the capital city and Cox's Bazar through linking it to Chittagong directly with a railway service, developing the two seaports of the country, constructing the Padma bridge and the plan of establishing a deep seaport to make Bangladesh a major communication hub of South Asia are certainly great ideas to lift the country from its present state of relative stagnation into a fast developing nation on a par with other fast growing countries of Asia. It injects high hopes among the citizens seeing that the physical communication infrastructure of the country has received such a great emphasis from the highest office of the incumbent government.
Since communication is the key to development in modern era, the prime minister's thrust on this issue is commendable. While appreciating the move, it would be germane to note that along with vertical development of the communication between the capital city and other parts of the country, the horizontal link among other big and small urban centres with road, railway and other communication infrastructures should also get equal emphasis from the government. In this way, other parts of the country would also get necessary spur for their contribution to the economic growth of the country better.
The communication network of the capital city is strained to its limits. The city cannot simply hold its present population. Its highways, lanes and by-lanes are coming apart at the seams under pressure of the notorious traffic hell. The number of arterial roads in the city is few. Numberless smaller roads intersect those major highways all over the city. Hence is all the chaos and snarl-ups at those intersections. Two make things worse-- fast and slow moving vehicles use the same highways and smaller roads. Intolerable traffic jams are created as a result during peak as well as non-peak hours. Moreover, the number of both motorised and non-motorised vehicles is increasing by leaps and bounds.
The situation has not only increased suffering of the commuters, the slowed down traffic is also making transfer of goods and people from one place to another costlier. The governments that come and go made no end of promises to improve the situation, but so far precious little could be achieved. Against this backdrop, the prime minister the other day announced this government's plans to develop the railway communication of the country, establish commuter train services between the capital city and the adjacent districts, construct underpasses, expressways, ring road around the city, etc., to ease the city's traffic movement and build better roads. She also unveiled her government's plans to connect Bangladesh with the Asian Highway and the Trans Asian Railway to develop the country's connectivity with the rest of the world.
Similarly, developing communication between the capital city and Cox's Bazar through linking it to Chittagong directly with a railway service, developing the two seaports of the country, constructing the Padma bridge and the plan of establishing a deep seaport to make Bangladesh a major communication hub of South Asia are certainly great ideas to lift the country from its present state of relative stagnation into a fast developing nation on a par with other fast growing countries of Asia. It injects high hopes among the citizens seeing that the physical communication infrastructure of the country has received such a great emphasis from the highest office of the incumbent government.
Since communication is the key to development in modern era, the prime minister's thrust on this issue is commendable. While appreciating the move, it would be germane to note that along with vertical development of the communication between the capital city and other parts of the country, the horizontal link among other big and small urban centres with road, railway and other communication infrastructures should also get equal emphasis from the government. In this way, other parts of the country would also get necessary spur for their contribution to the economic growth of the country better.