PUBLIC sufferings during Eid holidays have always been a concern. It appears that the sufferings will be even graver this Eid-ul-Adha as about 83 kilometres of highway and road stretches have been damaged in areas that were hit by Cyclone Remal. The Roads Highways Department report that the cyclone, which made landfall in Bangladesh on May 26, has damaged 66 highways, including 18 kilometres of national highways, 10.01 kilometres of regional highways and 54.57 kilometres of roads in districts. Some parts of roads, embankments, ferry approach roads and ferry stations have also been damaged. The impact of the cyclones on network roads shows that the government鈥檚 disaster preparedness is inefficient and barely working when it comes to protecting public infrastructure. The road transport and bridges minister on May 30 instructed that all repairs should be done a week before Eid-ul-Adha. The Roads Transport Authority has also made a similar decision. As roads in some areas are still inundated and meteorologists have sounded early warnings of seasonal flooding, it is unlikely that the maintenance work will be done in time. The government should, rather, have a concrete, time-bound plan after a thorough review of the changing weather patterns.
Neither the impact of a cyclonic storm nor heavy vehicle movement on roads and highways during Eid holidays is an unfamiliar concern for the government. Yet, the government appears unprepared. The report of the Highway Division mentions the surfacing of potholes on the roads because of cyclone, but the roads remain pothole-ridden round the year. It is a widely reported phenomenon that roads and highways are destroyed by heavy rainfall during the monsoon season. Experts primarily blame substandard road construction and shoddy repair work for the situation. The most recent Maintenance and Rehabilitation Needs Report says that at least 2,152 kilometres, or 10.48 per cent of, all surveyed roads were in a 鈥榩oor, bad, or very bad鈥� condition. According to the Roads and Highways Department鈥檚 Annual Maintenance and Rehabilitation Needs Report 2018鈥�19, about 26 per cent of national and regional highways and district roads were in a poor to very bad condition. It is, therefore, not surprising that road infrastructure is gravely impacted by the cyclone. With the full knowledge of substandard construction and maintenance work, the roads transport minister鈥檚 directive to complete repairs before Eid holidays appears nothing but a rhetorical gesture.
The risky conditions of the roads and highways demand more than rhetorical commitment from the incumbents. The government must take the issue of inadequate monitoring of road and highway construction seriously. It must form set up a body, as many experts suggest, involving experts from the Bangladesh University of Engineering Technology and people from the Anti-Corruption Commission to monitor road construction. Citizens should also devise their own strategy to fight corruption and irregularities in the transport sector and demand a full disclosure of the process and supporting documents through which the government has been unreasonably spending public money on road construction.
