The Dhaka-Sylhet highway would be upgraded to four lanes as proposed in the national budget for the fiscal 2020-21. This is part of the government’s plans to improve and modernize road communication in the country.
Sources in the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges said work on upgrading the highway to four lanes would begin soon after the budget is passed. Last year it was decided to upgrade the highway to four lanes with government funding.
Currently, the narrow highway remains in dilapidated state at many places dangerously exposing traffic to possible accidents. For this reason, as well as greater movement of traffic due to increased industrialization in the greater Sylhet region, the need for upgrading the highway has been given a priority.
The main demand of the people of the northeastern part of the country, including Sylhet, is to upgrade the Dhaka-Sylhet highway to four lanes. Despite repeated pledges, the road department could not start work during the tenure of last two terms of the government.
Finally, plans have been approved to upgrade the Dhaka-Sylhet highway and extend it to four lanes. In the proposed budget, allocation has been proposed to upgrade this important highway of the country to four lanes. The highway will be part of the Asian Highway-1 and Asian Highway-2.
However, the Dhaka-Sylhet four-lane upgradation project was pending for a long time due to financial constraints. The Asian Development Bank or ADB eventually agreed to fund the project. Work on the project is expected to begin this year.
According to the Roads and Highway Department(RHD), the project to upgrade the Dhaka-Sylhet highway to four lanes took shape in 2017. But it stopped in the middle.
In the meantime, the land acquisition project has been approved by the ECNEC. Land acquisition will cost Tk 5,000 crore. Besides, the entire project will cost Tk 14,000 crore.
The highway will be six lanes in total with two service lanes for slow lane traffic alongside the four lanes. According to the RHD, the 226-kilometer road from Kanchpur in Dhaka to Sylhet will be upgraded from two lanes to four lanes in the project. There will be two separate service lanes on either side,where ‘slow moving’ vehicles will move.
On the 226 km long Dhaka-Sylhet highway, 70 bridges of 4.25 km length will be constructed. There will also be four flyovers of 4,358 meters in total. The flyovers will be constructed in Bhairab, Goalabazar, Tajpur and Dayamir Bazar areas of Sylhet.
Besides, railway overpasses will be constructed at Narsingdi, Bhairab, Olipur, Laskarpur and Sylhet.The new plan will have 10 underpasses, 42 foot over bridges, three truck stands and two rest houses on the road.
However, Sylhet is now an important economic zone having most of the country’s traditional tea production industries. At present large-scale industries are being set up here under new policies. There are several cement and fertilizer factories in Sylhet. Naturally found stonechips of Jafflong in North-East Sylhet are transported to different parts of the country. There are plenty of oil and gas mines, including economic zones.
In the budget for the next fiscal year, it has been proposed to allocate Tk 29,442 crore for the Road Transport and Highways Division. In the current fiscal year, Tk 29,274 crore was allocated to this sector. In other words, the allocation for the road sector has increased by Tk 168 crore even in the midst of the Corona viruspandemic.
The Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal said while placing the national budget session at the JatiyaSangsad, “The government has laid emphasis on creating a coordinated communication network by making a massive investment in the country’s overall communication infrastructure comprising roads, bridges, railways, water-ways and airways.”
He said, “It is important to ensure that we have a modern, safe and environment-friendly transportation and communication infrastructure to transform Bangladesh into a developed nation by 2041.”
According to the Roads and Highway Department (RHD), the priority at present is to upgrade almost all the important highways in the country to four lanes and to develop road system to ensure road safety. At present work is underway to upgrade the Dhaka-North Bengal highway to four lanes.
Earlier, China Harbor had proposed Tk 16,349.21 crore for the construction of Dhaka-Sylhet four-lane on G2G basis. China Harbor was later dropped from the project for various reasons.