Now 100 roads set to open
After opening 100 new bridges to traffic in a single day last month, the government is now going to, simultaneously inaugurate 100 roads, most of which were either widened or renovated recently.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina will virtually inaugurate the roads with a combined length of over 2,000 kilometres in 51 districts on December 21, officials said.
The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has spent around Tk 15,000 crores in the last few years on these roads, they added.
Of the roads waiting for inauguration, only works on the 70km stretch from Gazipur's Joydebpur to Tangail's Alenga was done with foreign loans. Under this project, the road was widened to four lanes with service lanes on both sides.
The rest of the work was done with government funds, they said.
"We had the target to open 100 bridges simultaneously. We achieved that. Now our target is to open 100 roads. It will be achieved on December 21," RHD Chief Engineer AKM Manir Hossain Pathan told The Daily Star yesterday.
He said opening the 100 roads to traffic would further improve the connectivity in the districts.
The new roads also include regional or national highways, he said, adding that most of the physical work on these roads were done in the last three years, he said.
Prior to the development work, many roads were only 3.5 metres wide, which increased the risks of crashes, said an additional chief engineer of the RHD, adding that most of those roads had been widened to 5.5 metres or more under different projects.
The development work will improve durability and strength of these roads, he said, wishing not to be named.
The RHD has a 22,476km road network in which there are 3,991km national highways, 4,897km regional highways and 13,588km district roads.
National highways connect the capital to divisional cities, sea ports, land ports and international highways. Regional highways connect district towns to river ports and land ports. District roads link district towns with upazilas or one upazila with another.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on November 7 opened 100 new bridges. Those bridges are on regional highways and district roads. Some of those replaced old, risky Bailey bridges.
After the successful opening of the bridges, constructed spending Tk 906.32 crore, the authorities set the target for the roads.
The Prime Minister's Office yesterday wrote to the secretary of the Road Transport and Highways Division fixing December 21 to open the roads, sources said.
On the day, the PM will address events in Tangail, Khulna and Rangpur from the Gono Bhaban, they added.
Meanwhile, the division will sit at a meeting today to prepare for the inauguration programme.
The RHD is one of the departments that received the highest allocation from the Annual Development Programme since Awami League came to power in 2009.
The department received Tk 2,430.90 crore in the 2011-12 fiscal year under the ADB. The amount rose to Tk 23,440.86 crore in the last fiscal year, according to the RHD's 2021-22 annual report.
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