Hell freezes over highways

The highways still puts the moon to shame with gigantic craters despite the government hastily cobbling together a patchwork ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr, the greatest religious festival of the Muslims. Huge potholes, stripped face of the road, digging and pile of bricks and sand for construction have apparently made the would-be 4-lane highways look like a half-lane or 1-and-half-lane highway. Home-bound passengers are suffering untold miseries as the construction to widen the 2-lane highways into 4-lane ones has turned the roads almost into a rut. The rundown, narrow roads are causing massive congestions. Communications Minister Obaidul Quader on Monday, only a week before the Eid, claimed 80 per cent repairs of the country’s roads and highways were complete. But the people are far from reassured that the roads will be motorable and safe for ride; they also have their doubts about durability of the patchwork. They wonder if craters, which sprout up every year, would reappear within days of the road being repaired. The minister on July 11 had ordered patching up of all pothole-ridden roads and highways across Bangladesh within July 20. After his self-imposed deadline expired, Quader on Monday said it will take another ‘1 or 2 days’ to fix the rest of the badly damaged roads and highways ahead of Eid. But no marked improvements were seen during spot visits to several areas of Dhaka-Chittagong, Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka-Sylhet and the highways linking the city with the southern, south-western and northern regions yesterday despite reconstructions. At some places, it looked like hell, according to a news agency.