Underground railway for Dhaka
Traffic congestion in Dhaka has assumed such a menacing form that it has become a nightmare. Every day things are going from bad to worse. Successive govts. have been paying only lip service and no sincere & serious attempts have been made so far to address the problem. Economic cost of man-hour lost everyday is simply incalculable.
It is high time that the govt. should be serious about it and find out ways & means to solve the problem or at least reduce it to a tolerable level. The govt. is committed to constructing the Padma Bridge at a cost of over Tk ten thousand cores & planning & designing of the project has already started. But traffic congestion in Dhaka is a much more serious problem which deserves urgent attention of the govt. Some people come out with the argument that soil texture of Dhaka is not fit for construction of underground railway. This seems to be a hollow argument. If underground railway system can be built in Kolkata soil texture of which is not vastly different from that of Dhaka, I don't see any reason why it can't be done in Dhaka. Traffic congestion in Kolkata has been greatly eased after the construction of underground railway.
What seems to be lacking in our case is political will.
The project will no doubt require huge funds. If the govt. fails to manage resources the project can be implemented either through B.O.O (Build, Own & Operate) or B.O.T (Build, Own & transfer) basis. The elected govt. has no right to sit over the problem even for a single day.
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