The Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges moves to construct the country part of the Bangladesh-Myanmar friendship road as the other side delayed its readiness for a fresh joint survey on the route, official sources said.         Â
A consensus was reached at foreign ministry levels of the two countries recently to conduct a fresh feasibility study to find a more suitable route for the much-awaited trans-border road link.
Officials said the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has taken the move to construct the road from Balukhali to Gundhum on Bangladesh side which it found suitable for establishing the Bangladesh-Myanmar road link-conceived as part of a greater communications network.
They said the department has waited for permission of the Myanmar government through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh during the last five years to conduct the study on the other side, but to no avail to date.
"During the last five years, the RHD could not utilise budget allocations for the study purpose on the Myanmar side in the absence of any response. So we have given up the study project and taken the decision to construct the road on our side," said one official.
The RHD had undertaken the project in 2004 to construct a road initially from Ruma of Cox's Bazar to Balibazar of Myanmar through Gundum-Tandru border to establish a direct link with the Myanmar highway. The Bangladesh government assured of financing the road construction on the Myanmar side.
After the signing of a memorandum of understanding on July 27, 2007, the study project was taken to finalise the route and the RHD sought permission from the MoFA to conduct the study on the other side of the frontier.
Meanwhile, the RHD through a study last year found Balukhali-Gundhum border road suitable, among three options, for establishing the direct road link with Myanmar. The department finalized the route based on cost-effectiveness as the proposed two other routes would increase the distance farther than the Balukhali-Gundhum road.
However, during the last foreign office consultation (FoC) at the secretary level between Bangladesh and Myanmar on August 31, both sides agreed to conduct fresh study to select the alignment by exploring different options.
They said the Bangladesh-Myanmar road link, now known as friendship road, involves more issues to be sorted out.
"Both sides, during the FoC, pointed out trade, availability of resources in the border areas to fix the route and took the decision to revisit the area to explore the options for finalizing the route," said an official, preferring not to be named.
However, the decision is yet to be followed up.
Sources said Myanmar has some reservations on the Balukhali-Gundhum border road finalized by the RHD. They want to conduct study jointly.
The RHD took the project to restore the missing link from Ruma to Tandru of Rakhaiyan province of Myanmar as the neighbouring country has good network from that part. The Bangladesh government offered financial assistance for constructing the 25-kilometre road with the help of Bangladesh Army to facilitate connectivity with the Asian Highway and Kunming of China
Bangladesh and Myanmar with over 200 kilometres of common border agreed to establish direct road link in 2007. Under the plan, 23km road from Taungbro to Bawlibazar in Myanmar will be constructed by armies of the two countries.
smunima@yahoo.com