Land acquisition delays widening Faridpur-Kuakata Highway into 4-lane

With a 1998 plan to widen the Faridpur-Barishal national highway into a four-lane one still unimplemented, the government’s fresh project of widening the 236.74-kilometre highway from Faridpur to beach town Kuakata into four-lane with service roads is yet to begin.

The government in 2002 took the project to upgrade the Faridpur-Bhanga-Barishal-Patuakhali-Kuakata National Highway, N8, at an estimated cost of Tk 20,000 crore to boost tourism and improve the overall road communication throughout the southern districts of the country.

Though the Roads and Highways Division planned to complete land acquisition between 2018 and 2021, most of the 302.70 acres of land on both sides of the existing highway are yet to be acquired. The estimated budget of land acquisition was fixed at Tk 1,899 crore.

M Shamimuzzaman, a Deputy Secretary at Road Transport and Highways Division, attributed the delay in beginning works to the Covid-19 pandemic and some other ‘problems’.

“As the highway passes through Barishal metropolitan area, it is hard to acquire land where households and businesses remain,” he said.

The secretary recently said they were working on resuming the land acquisition process and in Barishal city, the land will be acquired for constructing a city by-pass.

Though Shamimuzzman said construction works to widen the highway would begin in 2022 on completion of land acquisition, Roads and Highways Division officials said the project is yet to get any budgetary allocation and the government plans to implement the project with foreign or government’s own funds or both.

Shamimuzzaman said that they completed the feasibility study of the project and its detailed design under the facilitation of the Asian Development Bank and are trying to manage the necessary fund from the bank.

The RHD officials said initially the 126 km stretch of the highway between Faridpur and Barishal would be turned into a four-lane, and the 108 km stretch between Barishal and Kuakata highway would be widened later.

Thousands of people of the northern, eastern and central districts of the country, including the capital, use the route to transport to Barishal, Faridpur, and Kuakata, that is why the highway holds significant importance to establish smooth and safe road communication, locals said.

People involved with the project said considering the possible sufferings of the residents of Barishal city, they are planning to modify the original plan by constructing a city by-pass instead of passing the highway through the metropolitan area.

Deputy secretary Shamimuzzman at a meeting on the project recently said the government would construct a by-pass between Gariar Par and Dapdapia Bridge.

And the authorities are yet to decide whether to widen the two two-lane bridges at Shikarpur and Doarika or not.

These issues might increase the project cost and the authorities concerned are yet to estimate the revised cost after project modification, the RHD officials said.

“The modifications will require a higher budget allocation. We have already submitted a proposal to the concerned ministry. Now we are eagerly waiting to see what the government decides,” said Shamimuzzaman.

Additional chief engineer of RHD at Barishal, Abu Hena, said, “We are working with the Barishal City Corporation to resume the land acquisition process as soon as possible. We are expecting to start the construction work next year.”