What’s the point of spending public money: Quader

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader yesterday came down heavily on road engineers for poor construction works, which warrant maintenance within a year or two of the projects’ completion.

The minister also castigated the authorities of the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) for long delays to install 28-axle load control centres on highways to protect the roads from overloading.

The minister made the remarks during a contract signing ceremony of an RHD project at a city hotel.

RHD yesterday hired two China-Bangladesh joint ventures to expand a 35-kilometre portion of the Dhaka Sylhet Highway at a cost of Tk 2,318 crore.

“We are building four-lane roads but they need repair work after one or two years of their completion. If that is not done, what is the point of building roads and spending huge amounts of public money?” he asked, specifically mentioning the Dhaka-Chattogram and Nabinagar-Chandra four-lane highways.

RHD engineers, however, blamed the road ministry’s decision to allow overloading beyond the international standard.

They said at present, two-axle vehicles (six wheels) can carry a maximum of 22 tonnes, three-axle vehicles (10 wheels) a maximum of 30 tonnes and four-axle (14 wheels) a maximum of 44 tonnes all over the country.

However, as per the global standards, the limits are 15.5, 22 and 32 tonnes respectively, they said.

The authorities imposed fines for overloading in August 2016 for the first time. However, it was forced to increase the maximum weight limit of goods-laden vehicles on November 2017 due to pressure from transport associations.

Quader said a project was taken to install 28 load control centres on the highways. “But nobody knows when the work will start,” Quader said.

The minister also said smart roads are needed to build a smart Bangladesh.

In September 2019, the government took the project to set up 28 axle load control centres at 21 points across the country at a cost of Tk 1,630.28 crore. The project’s original deadline was set in June last year.

Quader also questioned the purpose of a lengthy contract signing ceremony, terming it a waste of time and money. “We have a lot to do. Speeches will not get them done,” said Quader, during his 14-minute speech.