One of the more fundamental aspects holding back Bangladesh from fulfilling its economic ambitions is the poor state of our connectivity, especially intercity connectivity.
The government’s recently announced plans to operate an electric train service along the Dhaka-Chittagong route certainly holds promise to that end, as both cities are two of the biggest economic centres of our nation. Feasibility studies for the projects have already been carried out, reportedly, for this specific route, while further studies are also in the offing for a detailed design introducing electric traction from Narayanganj to Chittagong via Dhaka.
These are the sorts of projects that will be integral to Bangladesh for its future.
Indeed, connectivity remains a major hurdle for our country, but as the successful completion of recent projects such as the Padma Bridge show, we are indeed capable of overcoming them.
However, it is incredibly important that such projects do not fall prey to the sort of problems which have historically kept past initiatives from timely completion -- realistic and workable timelines are an absolute necessity, to that end. Even more important is transparency, especially financial transparency when taking up projects of such scope, where misappropriation of funds, both public and otherwise, are often rife.
As a nation that already scores quite low in terms of financial transparency, this is one arena that we cannot keep faltering in.
The long term benefits of projects such as this are far too many to count -- Bangladesh has long been suffering due to its lackluster infrastructure, not only will better connectivity ease trade and have positive ripple effects on the economy, but it will also go a long way towards achieving the much-needed goal of decentralization.
We can’t wait for that future.
The government’s recently announced plans to operate an electric train service along the Dhaka-Chittagong route certainly holds promise to that end, as both cities are two of the biggest economic centres of our nation. Feasibility studies for the projects have already been carried out, reportedly, for this specific route, while further studies are also in the offing for a detailed design introducing electric traction from Narayanganj to Chittagong via Dhaka.
These are the sorts of projects that will be integral to Bangladesh for its future.
Indeed, connectivity remains a major hurdle for our country, but as the successful completion of recent projects such as the Padma Bridge show, we are indeed capable of overcoming them.
However, it is incredibly important that such projects do not fall prey to the sort of problems which have historically kept past initiatives from timely completion -- realistic and workable timelines are an absolute necessity, to that end. Even more important is transparency, especially financial transparency when taking up projects of such scope, where misappropriation of funds, both public and otherwise, are often rife.
As a nation that already scores quite low in terms of financial transparency, this is one arena that we cannot keep faltering in.
The long term benefits of projects such as this are far too many to count -- Bangladesh has long been suffering due to its lackluster infrastructure, not only will better connectivity ease trade and have positive ripple effects on the economy, but it will also go a long way towards achieving the much-needed goal of decentralization.
We can’t wait for that future.