Given the fact that Bangladesh is poised to step into the league of lower middle-income countries, its initiative to construct 100 more highways may be viewed as a move matching the envisioned status. Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina inaugurated this number of highways in 50 districts by using the virtual platform. Earlier in November, the premier digitally inaugurated 100 newly constructed bridges in different parts of the country. Together these could be termed a burst of infrastructural development work which is expected to ease connectivity inside the country. These latest additions to the country's existing highways are expected to facilitate modern trade and business as well as public and private vehicular movements. So will do the bridges.
The backdrop of highway movement in Bangladesh, however, offers a dismal look. Despite the awareness of the necessity of well-built highways across the country, the policymakers and implementers are yet to come up with one that can be called a highway in the true sense of the term. Moreover, the endemic delay in construction and the low-grade work make the matter worse. Apart from the resultant cost escalation and public sufferings, such overruns of projects have adverse impacts on both local and national trade and economy. Then connecting roads --- along with bridges or culverts over those --- to local production hubs are left neglected to the effect that the potential trade benefit remains unexploited.
The highways are the arteries of a nation's economy. Of the 22, 476 km road network under Roads and Highways Department, there are 3,991 km national highways, 4,897 km regional highways and 13,588 km district roads. As can be seen, national highways connect the capital to divisional cities, seaports, land ports, and international highways. Regional highways connect district towns, river ports and land ports. District roads link district towns with upazilas or one upazila with another. There is no doubt that the network of roads connecting to the highways has been quite extensive over the years but it is difficult to be assured of their quality.
Despite the highway networks apparently covering the whole country, many important but outlying areas are cut off from the regional roads and bridges across them. People in these areas are meted out a punishment of sorts for no fault of theirs. At many points in these areas, socio-economic life has ground to a halt. Their constrained mobility is no help in developing business links with the wider parts of the country and the economy. To make things worse, vested interests in the localities are found designing to have the roads constructed along their chosen areas, thus depriving the poor people of the roads' benefit. This trend is also at work during preparatory stage of the highway constructions. All this leads a number of highways to cut through wrong areas bringing little respite to the people in certain areas. Although the technical people know well which areas would be suitable for road and highway connection, they play a subservient role to political clouts. But there is a need for a comprehensive and representative picture of an area when it is connected with national or regional highways.
