A good example of bad planning

After a delay of six years from original project completion date, the Dhaka-Chattogram expanded highway was inaugurated in June, 2017 at a final cost of Tk 3,439 crore which was a markup of 58 percent (due to repeated revisions in design). It seems that we plan for yesterday instead of tomorrow as the vision should have taken into account what would be the likely volume of traffic five, ten or twenty years down the line because the Dhaka-Chattogram highway is the lifeblood for trade and commerce. Otherwise, we end up with a situation like the one we are facing today with this highway.

Barely more than a year old, why does this much-needed highway need repairs? The Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division's (IMED) investigation has found evidence of shoddy workmanship. Increased traffic notwithstanding, why was there no government oversight on such a costly project? Had there been oversight, we would have known about the quality of workmanship being done and corrective steps could have been taken. While the Roads & Highways Division has asked for an additional Tk 900 crore for maintenance of the highway and this is on top of the regular maintenance fund, why has this project had 12 project directors in 11 years? Precisely how a road project of this magnitude was supposed to remain on track when the principal person in authority for the said project had tenure of less than a year? These are valid questions, especially since the expansion of this highway produced insufferable tailback of traffic year after year for all vehicles travelling to and fro Dhaka and Chittagong.

It is little wonder why practically all the mega infrastructure projects in the country are years overdue for completion. Not only is there suffering on people's part, business suffers due to inordinate delays and the end product's longevity is plagued by questions on quality of the work done.