RHD adopts project to improve Indo-Bangla connectivity

Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has adopted a project to extend the country's four-lane road network up to Rangpur for improving connectivity with India through Banglabandha.
 The extension of the regional corridor has been taken under SASEC road connectivity project-II to develop existing two-lane road from Elenga to Rangpur's Modern crossing through Hatikamrul into four-lane one with different facilities.
 Officials said the expression of interest to appoint the project implementation consultant (PIC) was called on March 22 and efforts were also on to get contractors for the 196-kilometre road.
They said the regional corridor would be developed with international standard to provide uninterrupted traffic movement for cargo and passengers.
"We will get four-lane facility from Dhaka to Rangpur after completion of the project by 2021, but the road link with Banglabandha will be established after implementation of the SASEC-III project," said an official involved with the project.
He said the Asian Development Bank (ADB), which has already financed the first part of the regional corridor from Joydevpur to Elenga through Tangail, assured financing the next section of the corridor. It is also likely to fund the third phase.
According to sources, the Tk 118.99 billion project will have slow movement of vehicle traffic corridor all along the road. Besides, three flyovers, 39 underpasses, one railway overpass and one interchange, 32 bridges and 11 foot-over bridges have also been planned to make the national highways free from traffic hazards like frequent stoppages, movement of pedestrians or local people etc.
The development project proposal of the project was approved in October last.
ADB's part of financing in the project is Tk 93.55 billion. The bank has planned to provide around US $ 3 billion for the SASEC road connectivity projects in next five years.
RHD officials said this road is important for having link with SASEC (Sough Asian Sub-regional Economic Cooperation) corridor 4 and 9, Asian Highway-2, BIMSTEC-2 and SAARC Highway-4.
The project was taken following completion of the feasibility study and detailed design carried out under the RHD's another project that did the same over 1,752-km national highway.
The RHD study projected that the traffic volume on the corridor would grow at a rate of 50 per cent till 2020. But the average annual daily traffic is likely to reach from 60,000 to 135,000 by 2040.
The corridor at the time of study in 2013 used to get from 12,000 average daily traffic to 29,000.
Sources said the corridor now receives mainly traffic of north Bengal, including stones from Banglabandha border and passenger traffic of India and Nepal.
    smunima@yahoo.com