The government has drafted a transport master plan to boost the multimodal transport system targeting especially business hubs.
鈥楢fter over 50 years of Bangladesh, we still do not have a transport master plan for the entire country,鈥� said Sheik Moinuddin, special assistant to chief adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus for the ministries of road transport and bridges and railways on Sunday.
He, at a views exchange meeting, also said that different transport authorities under different ministries had separate master plans which were not coordinated.
The views exchange was held between the special assistant and members of the Reporters for Rail and Road, a platform of Dhaka-based reporters working in the areas of roads, railways, communication infrastructures and transport.
Moinuddin said that the Road Transport and Highways Division under the road ministry had prepared the draft master plan in the past two months and it would take 12 more months to finalise the draft.
The aim of this plan is to include all future infrastructure projects on roads, railways and waterways and implement these in an integrated way, he said.
Replying to a question, he said that the biggest challenge he faced in the sector was a lack of coordination among different ministries.
At the views exchange, Bangladesh Railway director general Md Afzal Hossain said that they had taken plan to adjust rail fare with the increased capacity of the railway and current market values.
He mentioned that on the Dhaka-Chattogram route, the train fare was still almost half of the bus fare.
The views exchange was attended, among others, by roads and highways department chief engineer Syed Moinul Hasan, Dhaka Mass Transit Company Limited managing director Faruque Ahmed and Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority executive director Neelima Akhter.聽
