How will Bangladesh handle BBIN traffic?

Heavy-duty freight trucks will be roaring in Dhaka, so will passenger buses on trans-border trips. The vehicles will come-and some are already on run-from Bhutan, Nepal and India. How will the caravans pass through the already-congested routes through the capital city? Many, including transport-expert Prof. Shamsul Hoque, are in doubt if the flyovers could clear the impasse.               
But Bangladesh is bound by terms of a treaty to give a smooth passage to gaggles of vehicles from the neighbouring countries. This traffic arrangement is stipulated in the BBIN (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal) motor-vehicle deal under the prevalent concept of regional connectivity. It is a landmark development in itself, as the old notion of unimpeachable national sovereignty with airtight frontiers loses steam all over the present-day world.            
Rather denial bodes danger. Mobility is a motive force of modern life. This is what fuels yearnings of the opulent in the rich world for overriding the confines of the mother Erath to build holiday home in the space and invade other planets for domicile. Why not, then, allow the desperate ones driven out of homes by war, ethnic cleansing or pangs of deprivation from livelihood to pass through your borders into sources of a better life?                                
The migration crisis of today stems from the denial of human mobility in the final analysis. It shakes up Europe. It holds a core of potentials to explore. In an extreme scenario, the down-and-outs might overrun Europe. The rest of the rich world may not be immune, too.
Back on the Asian front, transit-transhipment traffic is already in limited operation under bilateral treaty between Bangladesh and India. And the quadrilateral BBIN motor deal comes into effect next December.
Close on the heels of these deals comes China's Silk Road master plan. President Xi Jinping's 'One Belt, One Road' agenda, based on the mega-plan, aims at building a network of ports and expressways to help expand trade and investment. It also conceives transport running from Kolkata to Kunming crossing over Bangladesh and Myanmar.           
The road-linking hype does not end here. There are already two wider communication schemes sponsored by UN agency ESCAP: Asian Highway and Trans-Asian Railway.
How far is Bangladesh prepared and proactively planning to take the load? Plans have long been there and more being broached. Cross-Jamuna tunnel, rail-bridge, a new bridge, etc. are all up in the air in speeches of government leaders. International development financiers are also tossing the ideas.                              
But time is ripe, or much of it has run out. Getting down to concrete work is imperative now, though late. Particularly when the capital city of Dhaka is clogged well before the floodgates fully open to transnational traffic, the authorities concerned may be well-advised to take up-as expeditiously as possible-the task of bypass routing of Dhaka's crumbling traffic.
'Eastern Bypass' is a forgotten project at this point of time. It was planned during the regime of HM Ershad, way back in the 1980s. This bypass had a twofold objective: protecting capital's eastern front from flood onslaughts and routing long-haul vehicles bypassing the overcrowded city.
In a recent development, the government has reportedly planned to build Dhaka Bypass under public-private partnership (PPP), as traffic through the capital city virtually hit an impasse. With full execution of the regional transit deals among four nations-Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal-the traffic load will take a tremendous upturn, experts say.           
Diverting traffic through the planned bypass is seen as an imperative even just now, to get rid of nagging road congestion in the mega-city of some 16 million people. A Financial Express report said that the construction of Dhaka Bypass has been neglected for last three years and the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) could not yet select a private firm as its partner for the job.
Officials  of the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges said that the RHD had undertaken the Support-to-Joydevpur-Debogram-Bhulta-Madanpur road project to upgrade it to a four-lane bypass under PPP at a cost of Tk 2.40 billion.
We can call it by any name, but Eastern Bypass or Dhaka Bypass must be built before a complete impasse is created in the capital.
able to avert an impending
climatic disaster.
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