INDEPENDENT UNIVERSITY, BANGLADESH (IUB)

Assignment on

Manufacturing (Cement, steel) in Bangladesh Along with

Comparison of another SAARC Country India

Supervised by:

Dr. REZAI KARIM KHONDKER

School of Business
Independent University, Bangladesh

Prepared by:

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 Contents

Transportation Road infrastructure of Bangladesh

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Introduction

Transport is an important component of economic activity in all countries but especially so in those
that are developing. Since ancient times, cities and trade canters have developed in locations that took
advantages of the availability of transportation connections such as rivers, roads, protected harbors
and railways.The potential for enhancing economic and social development through improvements in
the transport sector are very large indeed. It helps the generation of economies of scale, increased
competition, reduced cost, systematic urbanization, export-led faster growth and a larger share of
international trade. But, it is true that, the unguided nature of present development efforts is rooted in
the absence of a vision for future development. A vision sets the direction for development and guide
formulation of policy measures and strategies to attain identified objectives. Unfortunately, no such
vision for transport development exists in Bangladesh. The current disturbing trends in transport
development indicate the need for policy directions to make such development environmentally and
otherwise sustainable and to create a transport system that can meet the growing demand for transport
services which is resulting from increasing economic liberation and external orientation of the
economy. It is generally agreed that a well-articulated transport policy is needed for the development
of transport sector, even when the private sector plays an increasing role in such development. The
level of transport needs in a growing economy depend on the pattern of development (e.g. spatial
combination of economic activities, sectoral composition, and importance of international trade).
Transport policy can influence the way the transport needs associated with a particular pattern met. A
policy is required to answer such vital question, among others, as who will provide transport
infrastructure, who will provide transport services, how transport infrastructure and services should
be priced, what the appropriate roles of various transport modes in a transport system are, and how to
resolve potential conflicts between transport developments and the environment. There is growing
interest in the concepts of sustainability, sustainable development, and sustainable transport.
Sustainability reflects one of the most fundamental human desires supported by virtually all
philosophies and religions: to create a better future world. It provides guidance for long-term,
strategic decision-making. Sustainability emphasizes the integrated nature of human activities and
therefore the importance of comprehensive Planning that coordinates between sectors, jurisdictions
and groups. This is an important change because existing institutions are often poorly suited to
address complex, long- term problems. The purpose of the present paper is to conceptualized such a
concept of sustainability, sustainable development, sustainable transport and identify supporting
policies for sustainable transport development in Bangladesh.

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Objective
The goal of this review is to know the Transportation Road infrastructure of Bangladesh. It
can help us to check out the overall condition of the Bangladesh Transport system. The goals
of the analysis receive below,

 Know about the Bangladesh Road infrastructure

 Know about the Bangladesh past Road infrastructure Condition

 Comparing Bangladesh Road infrastructure with another SAARC

country IPC so we that we can understand Bangladesh transport
development progress.

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Bangladesh Road infrastructure:

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) is responsible for regulating

road transport in Bangladesh. The duty of BRTA is to ensure discipline in
road and manage the transport sector. In 1988, the Bangladesh Road
Transportation Authority (BRTA) became the governing body to regulate,
manage and discipline road transport. The training of drivers, the issuing of
driving licenses, the authorization of roads, the collection of taxes, the
registration of new vehicles, the renewal of the registration of old vehicles and
the checking of the fitness of such vehicles have been carried out. But several
concerns have been asked about the legitimacy of the BRTA since the
beginning of its operation. Despite having such an important role in the
economy BRTA fails to ensure road and transport safety as the internal
management is corrupted and unregulated. BRTA has only one Vehicle
Inspection Center in the Mirpur office to digitally track those vehicle
components. Brokers stand outside the BRTA office in Mirpur and offer to do
the hectic job of getting all the papers right for the vehicle owners or drivers.
Many of these brokers are fraud, they take the money in advance and never get
the work done (Daily Sun, 2020). Though this is illegal, most people depend
on this brokers so that they do not have to take the hassle for paperwork.
Recently, BRTA put up pictures of few brokers outside the office and warned
people to stop taking any service from them. However, recently people are
suffering to get their smart driving license. Smart license is supposed to make
life easy but the trap people are falling into to get their smart driving license is
a sad reality. Almost six lakh eligible applicants are waiting to get their smart
driving license, many fell into the trap of brokers, spending lots of money
(The Business Standard, 2020). After assessing the urgency of applications,
the BRTA is now issuing a restricted number of smart licenses, a BRTA
official said, adding that the number is no more than a hundred on average
every month. Also, practical driving tests for all vehicles remained halted for
months. On the other hand, service seekers struggling to renew their vehicles'
fitness at the Mirpur office of the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority in the
capital are suffering while staff members are also struggling due to

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tremendous pressure in the fear of coronavirus infection. The service-seekers
alleged the presence of brokers and the lack of health and social security
initiatives in the Mirpur office. One motor vehicle inspector at the office was
recently found to be positive for COVID-19, although officials were
concerned about more infections if the rush persisted. The authority is
currently inspecting the fitness of vehicles and has recently started the
registration service on a limited scale due to the prevailing situation (The
Business Standard, 2020). Bangladesh has been one of the most dangerous
places in the world for commuters with a fatality rate of 70! With the number
of motor vehicles increasing at 8 per cent per year, there is a significant risk
that road accidents will steadily increase if the fitness of the vehicles is not
tested and the drivers are not properly qualified. In order to bring about a
positive change, the government needs to make real political commitments.
Unless it splits the long-established union, punishes corrupt BRTA officials
and improves the organization providing the required manpower and technical
support, it will not be able to minimize public abuse in the BRTA offices or
ensure road safety.

The transport system of Bangladesh consists of roads, railways, inland waterways, two
seaports, maritime shipping and civil aviation catering for both domestic and
international traffic.

Development and maintenance of transport infrastructure in the county is essentially

the responsibilities of the public sector. The public sector is involved in transport
operations in road, inland water transport (IWT) and ocean shipping alongside the
private sector. In the road transport and IWT sub-sectors, the private sector is
dominant. In ocean shipping, however, public sector still predominates, although the
private sector has considerably increased its role in this sector in recent years. Recently
private sector has also been involved in domestic air transport and railway in a very
limited scale.

Bangladesh witnessed rapid growth of transport since independence. The overall

annual growth rate has been nearly 8.2 per cent for freight transport and 8.4 per cent
for passenger transport. Even then, the transport intensity of the Bangladesh economy

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is considerably lower than that of many developing countries.

The overall annual rates of growth for transport demand with reference to the
estimated benchmark year of 1997 are assumed to be 7.5 per cent and 8 per cent for
passenger and freight traffic respectively for the year 2002. The projected transport
demand and modal shares for the year 2002 is presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Projected Transport Demand and Modal Shares - Passenger and Freight

Year Passenger Freight

Total Mode Shares Total Mode Shares
P a s s -k m Ton-km
Road Rail IWT Road Rail IWT
1997 90 billion 72% 11% 17% 12 billion 65% 7% 28%
2002 152 billion 70% 12% 18% 19 billion 72% 8% 20%

Source: Fifth Five-Year Plan (FFYP), 1997-2002.

An amount of Tk. 109,955.50 million has been earmarked from public sector
for the development of transport in the Fifth Five Year Plan. Besides this, a
sum of Tk. 11,800 million has been provided for the Bangabandhu Bridge
giving a total allocation of Tk. 121,755.50 million for the transport sector as a
whole. The percentage share of transport in the total public sector outlay is
14.20 compared with 16.50 in the Fourth Five Year Plan and about 19 during
1995-97. The sub sectoral break-up of the Fifth Five Year Plan Transport
Sector financial outlay of Tk.121,755.50 million is shown in Table 2.

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 Table 2. Public Sector Financial Outlay for Development of Transport in Fifth
Plan (In million taka, at 1997 prices)

Sub-Sector Total On – going New Projects

Allocation Projects
Road Transport 64905.50 51500.00 13405.50
Bangladesh Railway 24000.00 17900.00 6100.00
Water Transport 13550.00 9750.00 3800.00
Air Transport 7500.00 6160.00 1340.00
Sub-Total 109955.50 85310.00 24645.50
Bangabandhu Bridge 11800.00 11,800.00 -
Total 121755.50 97110.00 24645.50

[Note: Of the total Plan outlay, only 20.24 per cent is available for new
projects. The highest outlay is given to the road sub-sector (about 53.30 per
cent) which is followed by Bangladesh Railway (19.71 percent).]

The total paved road length under Roads and Highways Department (RHD)
has expanded from a mere 600 km in 1947 to around 4,265 km in 1973 and to
around 21,000 km in 2001. At present it is nearly 22,000 km.Another 1,83,354
km of road existed under LGED, as of December 1998, which link rural
growth centres with the arterial routes. Most of the heavy vehicles in
Bangladesh are of 2-axle configuration, with two wheeled front axle and 4-
wheeled rear axle. The axle load limit is 18,000 lbs or 8.2 tonnes, compared to
10.2 tonnes in India.

India Road infrastructure:

Roads are an important mode of transport in India. India has a network of over 6,215,797
kilometres (3,862,317 mi) of roads as of 31 March 2020. This is the second-largest road
network in the world, after the United States with 6,853,024 kilometres (4,258,272 mi). At
(1.90 km, 1.18 mi) of roads per square kilometre of land, the quantitative density of India's
road network is equal to that of Hong Kong, and substantially higher than the United
States (0.71 km, 0.44 mi), China (0.54 km, 0.34 mi), Brazil (0.23 km, 0.14 mi) and Russia
(0.09 km, 0.056 mi). Adjusted for its large population, India has approximately 5.13
kilometres (3.19 mi) of roads per 1,000 people, which is much lower than Unites States

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 20.5 kilometres (12.7 mi) but higher than that of China 3.6 kilometres (2.2 mi). India's
road network carries over 71 percent of its freight and about 85 percent of passenger
traffic.

Since the 1990s, major efforts have been underway to modernize the country's road
infrastructure.As of 31 March 2020, 70.00% of Indian roads were paved. As of March
2020, India had completed and placed into use over 136,440 kilometres (84,780 mi) of
four or more lane highways connecting many of its major manufacturing, commercial and
cultural centres. According to Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, as of March
2020, India had about 138,531 kilometres (86,079 mi) of national highways and
expressways, plus another 176,818 kilometres (109,870 mi) of state highways. Major
projects are being implemented under the Bharatmala, a government initiative. Private
builders and highway operators are also implementing major projects.

Length Length
Category Managing Authority
(km) share
National
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways 151,000 2.19%
highways
State
Public works department of state/union territory 186,528 3.00%
highways
District
Public works department of state/union territory 632,154 10.17%
Roads
Rural roads Panchayats  4,535,511 72.97%
Urban
Municipal corporations and municipalities 544,683 8.76%
roads
Project Various government departments of states/union
354,921 5.70%
roads territories
Total Total roadways 6,215,797 100%

Bangladesh Transportation Road infrastructure Comparison with India:

Bangladesh India

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Roadway total: 369,105 km total: 4,699,024 km (2015)
s (2018)
note: includes 96,214 km of national highways and
paved: 110,311 expressways, 147,800 km of state highways, and 4,455,010
km (2018) km of other roads

unpaved: 258,794
km (2018)

 In a report on June 20 last, the World Bank presented a list of infrastructure

cost,especially in road construction. It shows the cost of per kilometre road
construction is $2.5 million to $11.9 million in Bangladesh, which is the highest in the
world.
On the other hand,Officials of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI)
estimate the average cost of building fourlane highways at Rs 8-9 crore per km and
six-lane highways at around Rs 14 crore per km, inclusive of land costs.
 There is approximately 21,483 km of roads under this department. The road network
capable to carry vehicles has increased significantly and is increasing every year.
Bangladesh government realises the importance of road maintenance and the RHD
has given more emphasis on this subject.
On the other hand, India has 142,126 km (88,313 mi) of National Highways as of
April 2019.

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Conclusion

Comparing to the India income per capita vs. Bangladesh Income per capita, we can say that
India income per capita is ahead, because their export import and GDP volume is very high
comparing to India. According to the IMF, India is set to drop below Bangladesh in terms of
per capita Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the economy is projected to contract by a
massive 10.3 per cent in 2020. To recap, the IMF has projected that in 2020 per capita GDP
of Bangladesh will be USD 1,887.97 at current prices. India will have a per capita GDP of
USD 1,877 in 2020. These changes in the respective economies will be due to a 3.8 percent
increase in Bangladesh's GDP and 10.3 percent decline in India's GDP in 2020. GDP per
capita in India is expected to reach 1900.00 USD by the end of 2020, according to Trading
Economics global macro models and analysts’ expectations.

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References

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