THE biggest road safety project that the government has planned to prevent death and injury by road accidents that weigh heavily on public health has made almost no progress in a year since its initiation. The National Economic Council approved the Road Safety Project, involving Tk 49.88 billion — meant to reduce fatality and injury in road accidents and enhance the road safety management capacity of the agencies concerned — on April 18, 2023 and the project is scheduled to be completed between May 1, 2023 and June 30, 2028. But the project is still in preparatory stages and is yet to be in implementation stages. The project synopsis quotes the World Health Organisation as saying that the number of death in road accidents is three times higher in Bangladesh, which forces the government to spend 2–3 per cent of the gross domestic products on the mitigation of such events. World Health Organisation estimates say that the number of death in road accidents in Bangladesh was 31,578 in 2021, 24,944 in 2018 and 21,316 in 2015. The figures are significantly higher than Bangladesh police data, which record 5,084 in 2021, 2,635 in 2018 and 2,376 in 2015. Road Transport Authority data record 5,024 death in road accidents in 2023.
The Roads and Highways Department will run an international road assessment programme on the 5,140-kilometre highways to find out safety deficiencies, implement a national road safety demonstration on 140-kilometre stretch of the Joydevpur-Elenga and Natore-Rajshahi highways and create an integrated traffic management and incident detection system on two highways along with a road safety audit manual. The Road Transport Authority will hold a four-month training for 60,000 commercial drivers, set up an integrated database of the BRTA information system and run an awareness campaign. The project will set up a police training centre in Madaripur to improve the capacity and skills of the Highway Police, procure 80 patrol motorcycles and set up an accident database. The Directorate General of Health Services will refurbish Mugda Medical College Hospital, 250-bed Tangail general hospital and Rajshahi Medical College Hospital with 60 life-support ambulances, 40 motorcycle ambulances and medical equipment and hold training for physicians, nurses and others concerned under the project. The project director, who says that there is no shortage of funds, says that since the project approval, only Tk 45 million has so far been released in the ongoing financial year. And, he notes that the funds could not be released as they are yet to complete the procurement process, putting the sluggishness down to the typical delay in most project implementation. The project office also finds coordination between the sectors involved, purchase packages and land acquisition challenging.
The statements of the people involved in the project suggest that there are challenges and issues to better deal with that could finally hold off progress in project implementation if the government does not make the required intervention, with the earnestness demanded of it, in time. A project of such magnitude is welcome, but the government must show the will to complete it in time in a transparent manner.
