4,200km of roads in bad condition

Around 25 percent roads under the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) across the country are in “poor, bad or very bad” condition, and fixing those would require Tk 10,679 crore in the current fiscal year, an RHD survey has found.

But the government has allocated less than a quarter of the amount or Tk 2,550 crore for the repair and maintenance of all roads and bridges. This means, much of the broken roads will get worse for a lack of repair work due to fund shortages.

Roads with huge cracks and potholes that need immediate repair are treated as “bad or very bad” roads, said an RHD engineer.

But because such roads are left unrepaired for long for fund shortage, the RHD is often overburdened with huge repair and maintenance work, said Rezaur Rahman Rajon, executive engineer (HDM Operation Division) at the RHD.

The RHD has to prioritise the maintenance work on the basis of traffic movement. As a result, roads that carry thinner traffic get less attention most of the time even though they need urgent repair, he added.

“In many cases, we can’t repair roads in time. We then have to go for major treatment of those roads, whereas only minor work would do if the work is done in time. And that ultimately increases the cost,” he added.

Prof Mizanur Rahman, director of Accident Research Institute at Buet, said poor road condition is related to road crashes.

Poor road often slows down traffic. So when drivers find good roads, they often gear up the speed, causing accidents, he said.

Road accidents are a major cause of death in Bangladesh. Diffident road safety organisations estimate 4,500-7,000 deaths in road accidents per year.

Asked why such a high percentage of roads are in poor condition, Prof Mizanur said, “Mega projects often get importance while maintenance work doesn’t. This may be a reason for the situation.” 

Ashis Kumar Dey, general secretary of the National Committee to Protect Shipping, Roads and Railways, said often repair was not done properly as a result of fund misuse.

There are 21,576 kms of national and regional highways and district roads in the country. The RHD surveyed 17,452kms of that and found some 4,247kms (24.34 percent) of them are in poor, bad or very bad condition. The rest are in good or “fair” condition.

Those in fair condition (4,482kms) will also need repair if they are part of national highways that carry heavy traffic, said an official.

The survey was done between November 2018 and March this year and its report was released on the RHD’s website yesterday.

The previous survey report in May last year found 4,731kms (26.32 percent) of roads and highways in poor or very bad condition.

In the 10 zones of the RHD, highest 570kms of poor to very bad roads are in Chattogram zone. Cumilla comes second, with 530kms of such roads, according to the report.

Dhaka has 303kms of poor to very bad roads, the lowest. Sylhet zone has the second lowest share of bad roads.

In the last fiscal year, the RHD got Tk 2,350 crore for maintenance of roads and bridges, up slightly from Tk 2,334 crore in the previous fiscal year.

This year, it needs Tk 314 crore for routine maintenance, Tk 3,638 crore for periodic maintenance, Tk 2,534 crore for partial reconstruction and Tk 4,193 crore for full reconstruction, according to the Maintenance and Rehabilitation Needs Report. 

Ongoing projects were not considered under the survey.

The report gave five recommendations for proper maintenance work, including field visits and design verification by the authorities.

“Routine maintenance has to be done properly and should be the first budget priority,” it said, adding that small contracts (up to TK 30 million) should be avoided to ensure quality work.

The RHD has been using the Highway Development and Management Model (HDM-4 Software), an economic tool, since 1999-2000 for optimisation of the fund disbursement. Since then, it has been publishing the survey report every year.