Roads and Highways Department (RHD) would spend Tk 22.30 billion only on land acquisition to widen a 55-kilometre road in the country's southern region, insiders said on Wednesday.
They said the state-run road developer proposed to spend Tk 405.58 million per kilometre on land acquisition for widening the road.
In addition, it would take up a separate project to reconstruct the road after the land acquisition work, they added.
RHD recently proposed the land acquisition project for widening the existing Kantakhali-Laxmikandor connecting road of the N-720 highway into a 4-lane one.
Development analyst criticised the RHD's move for spending a huge amount of taxpayers' money, blaming the road developer for not keeping aside adequate land beside its national highway when it was first constructed.
They said road construction by RHD and other government agencies in an unplanned way was nothing but misuse of public funds.
An RHD official said since the road was very important for connecting capital city Dhaka on one side and Benapole land port on the other side, they had taken the decision to widen it into a 4-lane highway.
"We have no adequate free space beside the 55km highway which forced us to acquire land spending Tk 22.30 billion," he told the FE preferring anonymity.
He said they had sent the project proposal to the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges. The ministry recently sent it to the Planning Commission (PC) for approval.
According to the project proposal, RHD would spend Tk 22.02 billion on acquiring 529 acres of land, Tk 283.10 million on shifting utility services like electricity wire and poles, Tk 13.07 million on constructing concrete guide posts and Tk 3.60 million on land survey, advertisement and stationary purposes.
When asked about the return from the road after huge investment in land acquisition, the RHD official said as the highway was very important to connect the capital city with southern districts, it would be feasible.
He, however, could not give details about the outcomes.
After the land acquisition, the RHD official said, they would take another project to reconstruct the road shortly.
According to the proposal, the RHD will complete the land acquisition work by June next year.
A member of the PC told the FE that it had become a common phenomenon of spending a huge amount of money on land acquisition by the project implementing agencies.
They did not have a long-term plan which needed to spend huge public-taxed money later on development works including road widening across the country.
"If RHD and other public agencies construct the roads considering the long-term impact, they should have adequate spaces with the provision of expansion of the roads in future," the PC member said. When asked about the RHD's project, another PC official said they were closely scrutinising the project before giving approval from their side.
