More than half of Dhaka roads damaged

Most Dhaka roads are pockmarked by dangerous and deep potholes filled with murky, dirty water, after the heavy rains in the last two days in particular.

City commuters are becoming ill getting jerked up and down the craters in the roads.

Cars, trucks, rickshaws, buses are crawling along ever so slowly, navigating cavernous potholes, visible and hidden in murky water. Roads in the capital are in gridlock, whether they be thoroughfares, lanes, or by-lanes.

There are five major thoroughfares, stretching from Kuril to Jatrabari via Pragati Sarani and Rampura, Abdullahpur to National Press Club via Mohakhali and Farmgate, Gabtali to Azimpur, Mahakhali to Gulistan via Maghbazar, and Pallabi to Farmgate in the city.

Of these arteries, only the road from Abdullapur to National Press Club is in a relatively better condition. State guests, VVIPs, and important personalities use this road the most.

Field visits by Prothom Alo reporters and officials of two city corporations in Dhaka revealed that more than about half of the 2,400 kilometres of roads in the capital have been damaged. The road condition from Gabtali to the Sadarghat embankment is the worst.

Urban specialists and planners said this situation is due to the city corporations’ unplanned and low-quality maintenance.

They also said proper and timely repair works would have gradually decreased the length of roads in need of repairs, as well as the expense.

Contrary to this view of experts, the length of repairable roads in two city corporations - Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) and Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) - remains the same while the cost of repairs is rising every year.

DSCC and DNCC repaired 520-km of roadways last year and planned to repair 519-km of roads this year. The cost of repairs in the past fiscal was Tk 1,500 crore while the budget sanction in the current fiscal is Tk 1,831 crore.

Of the 519-Km roads to be reconstructed this year, DSCC and DNCC planned to repair 22 per cent before the monsoon.

Officials of the engineering departments of the two city corporations said more than half the roads are not in good shape due to heavy rains and waterlogging.

On condition of anonymity, they also said the sufferings have increased as digging at 500 spots, started during the last dry season, has not been completed.

The city corporation workers are filling the potholes with bricks, saying the situation might return to normal after reconstructing the roads in the next dry season.

Additional chief engineer of DNCC, Kudrat Ullah said to Prothom Alo, “Many roads have been damaged in the rainy season. We are laying out bricks on the most damaged city roads so that vehicles can at least move. The city corporation is doing this for now. Major reconstruction work will be done in the dry season.”

Echoing Kudrat Ullah, additional chief engineer of DSCC, Asaduzzaman said, this year the rate of precipitation is higher than earlier years. This has damaged the roads more. “We are currently focusing on temporary repair works.”

Rebutting the views of DSCC and DNCC engineers, Jahangirnagar University’s urban & regional planning department professor Akter Mahmud, also general secretary of Bangladesh Institute of Planners, said to Prothom Alo, “It is not true that only waterlogging created this condition of the roads. Movement of overloaded, heavy vehicles and poor construction work are also responsible.”

In response to a question about maintenance lapses, DNCC’s additional chief engineer Kudrat Ullah said that generally the city corporation does not reconstruct a road in consecutive years. However, “It would’ve been impossible to move on Dhaka roads if we didn’t maintain those properly.”

City corporation engineers and experts said that generally newly constructed roads need no repairs for 15-20 years. Nevertheless, since Dhaka roads are old and bear heavy traffic, once repaired, they should last for 6-8 years.