Damaged by floods, cyclone Amphan and other natural disasters, rural roads across the country need repair soon, say officials concerned of the Local Government Engineering department (LGED)
According to sources, the largest road network in the country is under the LGED. The length of roads of the LGED in three categories--upazila, union and rural roads--is 1.17 lakh kilometers.
Officials concerned of the LGED said that around 53 percent of the rural roads are now in bad shape.
Experts said these roads have become damaged due to natural disasters like flood, cyclone Ampham in addition to use of low quality materials, irregularities, corruption, incompetent contractors, lack of maintenance, design flaws and inadequate allocation for road construction.
Helaluddin Ahmed, senior secretary of the Local Government Department, said the total length of roads under the LGED is 1,17,419 kilometers. Of the roads, 63,244.7 kms are used for the movement of light vehicles.
Officials said the condition of 49 percent of the rural roads was in good shape in 2017-18. But, at present only 47 percent of the rural roads are in good shape while the rest 53 percent or 62,000 kilometres of rural roads under the LGED need to be repaired.
According to officials, the roads constructed by the LGED are comparatively lower. That is why, the roads of the LGED get damaged by the floods comparatively more than other roads. Last year's floods caused damage to about 18,000 km of rural roads. But most of these roads have not been repaired as yet.
The officials also said that LGED has its own design standards for road construction. The design standard was set by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in 2005. As per the design standards, the lifespan of a road built by the LGED is 10 years. The load carrying capacity of the road is eight point two tons per vehicle.
Khalilur Rahman, chief engineer of the LGED earlier said that the roads under the LGED are getting damaged too early due to faulty construction, use of low-quality materials and carrying of extra loads.
LGRD Minister Tajul Islam said quality of bitumen used for construction of roads should be decided by inter-ministerial meetings in presence of BUET engineers and experts concerned.
“Engineers need to monitor whether substandard bitumen and other materials are being used in the road construction”, said the LGRD Minister and continued saying that whether the thickness of the road is getting right, whether bitumen is being used properly, the work is being done as per the design, should be monitored.
However, LGRD state minister Swapan Bhattacharya said the monitoring system could not be strengthened due to lack of manpower and shortages of vehicles.
“Monitoring system will be strengthened by recruiting manpower soon”, he said.
According to reports received from different districts, roads and highways have been highly damaged in Gazipur, Manikganj, Rajbari, Netrokona, Sherpur, Bandarban, Cumilla, Brahmanbaria, Chandpur, Noakhali, Sylhet, Moulvibazar, Sunamganj, Natore, Bogura, Pabna, Sirajganj, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Kurigram, Lalmonirhat, Nilphamari, Panchagarh, Thakurgaon, Jhenaidah, Meherpur, Bagerhat, Khulna, Bhola, Satkhira, Bogra, Chapainawabganj, Naogaon and Chuadanga.
Earlier the government estimated over Tk 1.6 billion as the cost for reconstruction or repairing of roads.