The Chinese Enterprise Association in Bangladesh and the Urban Development Journalists Forum Bangladesh jointly organise a workshop on Infrastructure for Building Smart Bangladesh at Baridhara in Dhaka, on Tuesday. – New Age photo.
Development experts at a workshop on Tuesday said that many development projects, mostly high-investment ones, would increase public sufferings in future for the lack of foresight in the project planning.
Engineers and urban planners also alleged that project implementation agencies in Bangladesh were largely ignoring the best practices for development.
The Chinese Enterprise Association in Bangladesh and the Urban Development Journalists Forum Bangladesh jointly organised the workshop on Infrastructure for Building Smart Bangladesh at Baridhara in Dhaka.
Public transport expert and Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology professor Shamsul Haque said that flyovers could never be a solution to traffic congestion.
Cars have to get down to the road from the flyover and get stuck in tailback, he said, adding that public transport should be the first priority to reduce traffic congestion in any city.
If all metro rail passengers in Dhaka travel by cars or auto-rickshaws, it can be assumed that the road will be at a standstill, he observed.
Construction of flyovers within the city is short-sighted as many countries, including Thailand, are demolishing flyovers, said the professor.
He said that single-track rail line on the mega project Padma bridge was another wrong decision. Within a short time, the demand of rail will increase and the bridge will not serve the nation, he observed.
He also criticised the low height of the bridge keeping only 18 metres that has already obstructed ferry movement during flood.
‘If in future we want to operate large ships in the water route, that would not possible,’ he said.
Shamsul Haque said that most of such faulty constructions happened for the lack of coordination among the agencies.
‘Construction cost in the country much higher for the lack of such haphazard development without coordination,’ he said.
The government has decided to demolish 13 bridges built over the rivers around the capital because of their low height, buta 10-lane bridge and rail bridge are being built at the same height at Tongi, he said.
Bangladesh Institute Planners president and Jahangirnagar University professor Adil Mohammed Khan said that all infrastructure development projects should be taken considering economic, health and social aspects.
In most cases, policymakers impose the projects and that is why the people do not get the desired services when the project is implemented, he said.
CEAB president Ke Changliang said that China kept playing an important role in the infrastructural development of Bangladesh.
Lawmaker Hasina Bari Chowdhury, CEAB vice-president Zhang Xiaoliang, China Media Group Dhaka bureau chief Wang Jianbing, architect Sirajul Islam Khan, UDJFB president Matin Abdullah, secretary Faisal Khan, former secretary Shohel Mamun, among others, addressed the programme.
NEW AGE