7 New Bridges in Northern Dists: Havoc on rivers for faulty designs

At least seven bridges built recently by the Roads and Highways Department in several northern districts have faults, either in alignments or guide banks, which may have adverse impacts on the rivers there, says a government report.

The impacts include rivers dying and eroding, says the report by Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED), prepared on a foreign-funded RHD project.

The IMED published the in-depth monitoring report recently over the Western Bangladesh Bridge Improvement Project of RHD. It had carried out the study by its consultant named Techno Consultant International Ltd in 2020-21 fiscal year.

The RHD built solid reinforcement concrete walls which had already created discontent among locals as it obstructed the view of the river.

In an executive summary of the report, it has gone through different lab test reports to check the quality of the bridge and found the reports "satisfactory".

"However, the design and construction work of the guide banks of seven bridges in several districts [Dinajpur, Thakurgaon and Panchagarh] built under the projects appears to be faulty. As a result, it can have adverse impacts [such as rivers eroding and dying] on climate change," reads the report.

Bridge guide banks are built to control the river flow and to ensure that water flows beneath the bridge at all times, engineers said.

Moreover, the alignments of two bridges -- Chawai Bridge in Panchagarh and another in Dinajpur's Parbotipur -- were found faulty, it added.

Pillars of some bridges have a 2.5 metre diameter that has shrunken the river flow. If the pillars had been built in an eleptical shape, instead of round, the river's flow area would have shrunken less.

The authorities should consider this before building bridges in the future, it added.

Under the Tk 2911.75 crore project, the RHD is building 82 bridges in 26 districts between October 2015 and June 2022. The IMED, in its report, feared that the project authorities may not be able to meet the revised deadline.

In November 2015, the government took up the Western Bangladesh Bridges Improvement Project to build 61 bridges aiming for safe, reliable and efficient transportation for people and goods. Japan will provide 65.43 percent of the total cost.

The project was scheduled to be completed under five packages between October 2015 and June 2020 at the cost of Tk 2,911.75 crore.

But in 2019, 22 more bridges were added to the project, resulting in an extension of the deadline till June 2022, a project official said.

However, the project cost remains the same as the construction of one major bridge in Narsingdi was dropped and its budget was repurposed for the 22 smaller bridges.

A total of 25 bridges, which were built under three packages, were inaugurated in March last year while works of other bridges under four other packages are now underway.

WHAT THE IMED REPORT SAYS

A bridge with 80-metre span was built over Gabura Gorbheshwari river in Dinajpur's Rajapur upazila.

Citing field visit information, the report said the guide bank of the bridge partially occupied the river and as a result, the river in the upstream is dying.

Besides, an attempt was made to preserve the riverbed with cement concrete (CC) blocks but there has been no application in this regard, it mentioned.

About the bridge on Atrai River in Madarganj of Dinajpur, it said that not only was the guide bank occupying a part of the river, the alignment of the previous bridge there was "perfect" but the alignment of the newly-built bridge appeared to be faulty. As a result, this is causing river erosion downstream, said the report.

An RHD engineer said a river usually changes its path and a bridge guide bank is built for river training so that water flows beneath the bridge and cannot damage the banks near the bridge.

DELAY IN PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader at a programme in September last year said the authorities of this project have been able to save Tk 286 crores and also proposed building 10 more bridges under their ongoing project as they were able to save.

IMED, however, reported that project authorities may not be able to complete the project work within the deadline. Issues about new bridges were not mentioned in the IMED report.

In its report, IMED said the project authorities were supposed to use Tk 1855.36 crore by June 2020 (63.71 percent) of the total amount but was able to use Tk 442.69 crore till June last year.

The project saw 59.13 percent financial progress till April 2021.

As per the report, the construction of 25 bridges has been completed while 35 more are now near completion (98%). But construction of the rest has started and has seen only 20 percent progress.

"So, construction of the 22 bridges and other works would not be completed within June 2022," reads the report.

WHAT THE RHD SAYS?

The RHD's Chief Engineer Abdus Sabur said they have been implementing the project following the feasibility study. "There is little to no scope for devation [from it]."

Sabur was the immediate past project director.

The Daily Star could not reach the current project director, Khan Md Kamrul Ahsan, over the phone despite several attempts.

Asked about IMED's observations, Sabur said, "We had a meeting with them and we have already given our own observations."

About the fault in alignment, he said they had tried to adjust the approach road with the limitations.