Four-lane project stymied

The good news, if at all it can be called that, is that the project to expand the Dhaka-Chittagong highway into a four-lane one goes on. The bad news is that the progress one had expected to come into the work has simply not been there. Despite two years having gone by, only 17 per cent of the work has been completed. The deadline for the four-lane project to be implemented remains, of course, December 2012. From the look of things, however, it is difficult to believe that the work will be over by that date.
It would have been quite normal for the public to take the authorities responsible for the project to task over their failure. The fact, though, is that elements apart from the authorities are to be held responsible as well for the lapse. As our report on the issue last week makes it abundantly clear, the four-lane project has remained stymied allegedly by corruption. Despite efforts by the contracting firms, two of them Bangladeshi with a third one being Chinese, to have low-lying lands filled with earth gathered through a dredging of rivers, et cetera, it is local elements at various points of the region whose political clout has come in the way of the project. Local politicians, belonging largely to the ruling party, have reportedly been demanding money before they will let the project go ahead. Now that is certainly a serious situation which calls for a no-nonsense investigation. As we understand it, these local elements have also come in the way of a demolition of houses and shops along the highway, a vital task if the highway is to be expanded according to plan.
There are other unsettling reports. Loyalists of the Feni mayor have allegedly beaten up men working for a Chinese contractor because of the contractor's refusal to buy earth from them at higher prices. These developments cannot make anyone happy, least of all the authorities. Will the government step up and put a leash on all these unruly people?