City roads or moon craters?

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The traffic system in Dhaka city has virtually collapsed as numerous potholes and huge craters surfaced on almost all city roads.

Vehicular movement is damaging the roads further and the potholes, created due to heavy rainfall and flooding of the roads, are now turning into craters.

At Uttara alone, Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) has identified around 180 potholes taking up more than 2766.58 square metres of road surface.

A disappointed Uttara commuter said, “Frequent travellers on this road try to get around the potholes, but others fail to take notice of them quickly enough and end up suddenly running into a nasty crater.”

“The city corporation can outline the potholes on billboards at all the major intersections [of the road] if they sincerely want to help us avoid accidents,” he suggested.

However, DCC engineers responsible for maintenance of roads in different zones in the city expressed their helplessness under the prevailing circumstances.

A DCC engineer concerned said, “City commuters are suffering while we are having to face the hard task of repairing almost all roads. The heavy rainfall has washed away the bitumen layer of the roads. …the bitumen layer was damaged by accumulated rainwater on the roads due to poor drainage.”

Monsur Ahmed, executive engineer of DCC Circle 10, told this correspondent that he had tried in vein to draw attention of the executive engineer of Roads and Highways Department (RHD) about the death traps lurking along the Dhaka-Tongi highway.

The Daily Star also published several pictures of the rundown Dhaka-Tongi highway, but the RHD paid no heed. The potholes on the waterlogged road near Abdullahpur crossing at Uttara have grown larger by now and taken the shape of a ditch as hundreds of heavy vehicles continue to ply on it.

A bus driver said it is getting more and more difficult to drive on the highway while trying to get around the huge craters — evidently resulting in huge traffic congestion.

Dhaka City Corporation has recorded numerous reports of washed away roads. In Zone 7, potholes have been reported on the part of road stretching from Mirpur Mazar Road to Selina General Hospital, road from SOS Shishu Polli to Shyamoli No 2, intersection of Darussalam Road and Mirpur road, Ibrahimpur main road, and road from Kazipara via Shewrapara to Kafrul.

In Zone 3, many roads including Pilkhana Road, Orphanage Road, Shayesta Khan Road, Chawk Circular, Haranath Ghosh Road and Bakshibazar Road are severely damaged.

Damaged roads in Zone 6 include Nurjahan Road, Jakir Hossain Road, Mirpur Road, Indira Road, Baitul Aman main road, Pisciculture main road and roads in Lalmatia Block D.

Many areas in Zone 1 including Swamibagh, Joy kali Mondir, Jatrabari, Doyaganj, Narinda, Sayedabad, Gandaria, Wari, are full of roads with potholes. Tipu Sultan Road and the road stretching from Maniknagar crossing via Janapath Road to Dhalpur are also in a terrible state.

Poorly maintained roads in Zone 4 include the road from Mugda to Titipara stadium, Kamlapur main road stretching from rail terminal to Titipara stadium, VIP roads of Motijheel, road from Malibagh crossing to Kamlapur rail terminal, and roads of Basabo, Madartek and Khilgaon.

In Zone 9, numerous roads in Gulshan, Banani, Tejgaon and Badda, especially Gulshan-Badda Link Road developed deep craters.

Currently Dhaka City Corporation is responsible for maintaining a road network of 1860 kilometres in the city while RHD is the responsible for intercity roads. In an ideal situation, roads should add upto 25 percent of a city area. For over one crore commuters of Dhaka, only 6 percent of its area is paved with roads.

Both engineers and contractors working under DCC admitted that the quality is compromised during road construction to minimise a contractor’s loss. The DCC rates are simply ridiculous, said a DCC contractor, adding, “DCC has no idea of market price for bitumen or bricks.”

Another DCC contractor on condition of anonymity told The Daily Star that apart from DCC’s absurd ‘rate quote’, Public Procurement Regulation has also become an obstacle to building quality roads.

Under the previous guideline, DCC contractors used to follow ‘Form 2911′ and they were required to deposit 2.5 percent of the earnest money. Whereas, now, under the Public Procurement Regulation, not only 3 percent security money is required, another 10 percent performance guarantee fee is required for a contractor prior to starting any construction work.

In most cases, the contractors end up compromising the quality of work by using sub-standard materials.

In developed countries, MS rods, cement and stone chips are used to build roads in a method called “rigid pavement”. However, “flexible pavement” method is still being used in road construction in Bangladesh where bitumen, sand and macadam are used. The “rigid pavement” is expensive, but can withstand heavy rainfall, explained a number of DCC engineers.

One square metre of bituminous “flexible pavement” costs Tk 382 as opposed to Tk 3,000 for a square metre of “rigid pavement”.

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