Tale of a bridge
Your Bogra staff correspondent's report and the picture of Kamirdala bridge accompanying the report is an eloquent testimony of mismanagement in government's capital investment programmes; particularly under the ministries of LGRD and RHD!
The picture clearly indicated why and where the priorities lay. Building the bridge was possibly an incentive for the easier opportunity of money siphoning it provided; which possibly boosted the investment. In contrast, the highly visible and labour-intensive work of earth filling for the bridge approach road at each end did not possibly provide necessary parameters to hide sufficiently attractive amounts for personal gain! Compared to the large concrete structure, this was chicken feed not to motivate any prospective fund milkman! Earthwork and road carpeting is normally highly visible and labour-intensive, with little scope for material manipulation in quantity or quality compared to RCC casting; which is needed for bridge building!
The report further states that not one or two, but 71 bridges and culverts have been built as isolated monuments, with no road access. It has not been of any use for the people; except those involved in making money out of all these works! These "bridges and culverts to nowhere" reflect the government's attitudes, priorities and fund utilisation (or wastage?); all based on "percentages' that can be siphoned off.
It further demonstrates the skewed type of work planning and programming that encourages incomplete and non-useful work as our great development programmes and efforts, being touted everywhere as the government's positive development endeavours! It is high time such wasteful expenditure is rationalised. Would it not have been better to, say, build 50 bridges and culverts that could be usable to the people than those concrete white elephants doing no good!
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