Staff Correspondent

The caretaker administration looks set to implement a huge road maintenance and improvement project as the final report on a 20-year master plan was presented Thursday at a city hotel.

Communications adviser Ghulam Quader said the long-term Tk 69,000 crore (around $10 billion) Road Master Plan will be put into operation after consultations and review at the national level.

The plan was developed under the Roads and Highways Department in response to direction from the National Land Transport Policy. Quader told reporters the caretaker government would also assess the degree to which private investment would be solicited in the project's implementation.

"The government pursued a 10-year plan prior to developing the current 20-year plan, and elements of the original plan have been incorporated," said Quader. The Asian Development Bank funded the initial stages of the project in July 2006.

"Overloading of trucks and busses causes excessive damage to pavements particularly on national and regional roads," said the road master plan executive summery.

"The degree of overloading is extremely high in Bangladesh, and is estimated to cost the country over Tk 300 crore per year in additional maintenance and rehabilitation needs," it added. "A considerable portion of the project funds will be spent in the maintenance of the roads and highways," said the adviser.

Communications secretary Mahbubur Rahman said projects failed to materialise in Bangladesh because "we don't trust ourselves". "To my mind, implementing big projects requires the involvement of the private sector," Rahman said.

According to the project master plan, the cost of maintenance work alone has been estimated at around Tk 23,000 crore over the 20-year life of the plan.

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