The Financial express, 31 July 2012
Condition of the country’s roads and highways is likely to improve ahead of the upcoming Eid festival as the communications ministry has taken a number of measures to repair damages of the existing arteries.
Officials said much before the month of Ramadan began, the ministry formed nine monitoring cell and opened a control room to identify bad roads of the country and take initiative to renovate those in time.
“We have also taken complaints from commuters through the ministry website so that immediate measures can be taken to redress the complaints,” said Road Division Secretary MAN Siddique.
The ministry has so far received 31 complaints about 17 highways with photographs of damaged roads since it opened the website early July. Many media reports with photographs have also helped the ministry identify those roads that are needed to be repaired.
The officials said immediately after the complaints were received through the website or control room, directives were given to the executive engineers of the specific circles of the Roads and Highways Department for taking appropriate measures.
“The RHD engineers also provide the steps taken including pictures of the improved roads after the maintenance and repair work in the website for the people,” said an official working in website development.
Some commuters who recently visited different highways including Dhaka-Chittagong Highway and the much-talked-about Dhaka-Mymensingh highway also said majority of the bad roads have been improved.
“There have been good works going on in some points of the highways in full swing, particularly in Valuka of Dhaka-Mymensingh Highway,” said Mayaz Hossain Kabyo, a businessman who traveled in different parts of the country for his business purpose.
However, some highways mainly those in Jessore-Khulna region are still in bad shape.
The RHD has around 23,000 kilometres of roads and highways under its network of which the majority of the roads was in bad shape last year due to not taking measures of periodical maintenance and repair work in right time leaving creation of hundreds of thousands pot-holes and black spots.
Earlier, the ministry complained about poor allocation for periodical maintenance and repair works but the finance ministry has allocated more than Tk 9.0 billion for this purpose in the current (2012-2013) fiscal year.
Last year the allotment for periodical maintenance and repair works was more than Tk 6.0 billion of which a large amount was taken by contractors without any doing significant work. The contractors, however, alleged that due maintenance work on the roads and highways could not be done due to non-release of the money in time.
There had also been an allegation of not providing necessary fund for the repair work for the damaged roads.
Communications Minister Obaidul Quader and Road Division Secretary MAN Siddique also frequently visit different important highways every week to see for themselves the repair works.
Asked whether the repair work was being done temporarily or on a permanent basis, the secretary said it depended on the weather.
“We want the roads to remain in good shape throughout the year so that people can move comfortably. But roads maintenance is a continuous process and the government is giving priority to it to keep the countrywide road network in good shape all the time,” he told the FE.
Bangladesh Economy 
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