THE long-promised development of public transport for Dhaka with projects meant to ease congestion and reduce hassles remains disappointingly slow. A series of large-scale projects, including mass rapid transit lines, a bus rapid transit corridor and an elevated expressway, have advanced unevenly, with visible gaps between planning and execution. In 2014, the first-ever bus rapid transit line project was undertaken to connect Gazipur and Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in the capital through a dedicated bus corridor. The 20.5-kilometre dedicated bus lanes are now open to all vehicles while not a single bus has so far been purchased by the company formed to implement the project. In some cases, the infrastructure has been partially completed but remains underused and important metro extensions continue to miss deadlines. Costs have also escalated sharply, with initial estimates for several projects nearly doubling over time. Meanwhile, annual development allocations fluctuate, leading to stop-start construction cycles. The result is a city where people continue to endure congestion and unreliable transport.
The causes of the delays are public knowledge. Weak coordination, non-transparent decision-making and prolonged indecision on project continuation or redesign have slowed progress and increased the cost. In the case of the mass rapid transit lines, the project became very expensive because of non-competitive clauses where only the costs provided by the Japanese development organisation were accepted. At the same time, the delay in fund disbursement has disrupted project timelines. The MRT Line 5 project, launched in 2023 with an initial cost of Tk 41,238.55 crore, has already surged past the estimated cost to about Tk 88,000 crore while only 9.27 per cent of the total cost had been spent by March. Despite allocations across multiple financial years, implementation remains slow, with work still limited to depot development, contractor appointments and tendering. The problem is, therefore, not just disruption in fund flow. It also reflects issues of weak planning and poor project management. While political instability after the fall of the Awami League may have contributed to delays, experts point out that time and cost overruns are systemic in large-scale transport projects, often creating conditions conducive to large-scale corruption.
The government should, thereore, take decisive steps and declare priority projects as fast track, ensure predictable and adequate financing, enforce transparent procurement processes and establish strict timelines with rigorous monitoring. Institutional coordination needs to be strengthened so that technical, financial and administrative decisions move in sync rather than in conflict. Without urgent correction, the projects risk becoming symbols of inefficiency rather than development that Dhaka cannot afford as it has already paid dearly for a transport system it continues to wait for.
