Govt mulls land transport police, new road fund
Staff Correspondent
The government is considering formation of a 'land transport police' (LTP) force to ensure safety and security of the road traffic and creation of a fund to maintain the roads and bridges. The LTP would be a force similar to the GRP assigned to the railways but, unlike GRP, which is supervised by the home ministry, it would be under direct command of the communications ministry, said Commu-nications Minister Nazmul Huda at a press conference yesterday. Nazmul said, in addition to maintaining traffic, the LTP would detect fake papers of vehicles and check reckless driving on roads and highways. He, however, did not go into details about other activities of the force or from where its funds would come. The minister said the new road fund would be created with the money collected from bridges as toll and a separate body like the Bangladesh Land Port Authority would be formed to maintain it. The fund would be used to carry out repairs and maintenance of roads and bridges, without spending money from the revenue budge, Nazmul elaborated, adding donor agencies also suggested creating such a fund. The minister also reiterated his ambition to develop a magnetic train service between Dhaka and Chittagong, which he said is still under the government's active consideration. "It is my dream and one day this dream would come true." Magnetic train service, which is very cheap and cost-effective, is used in China, Nazmul said. He thinks it would enable people to shuttle between the capital and the port city in only an hour. Nazmul informed the newsmen that the construction of Padma Bridge at Mawa would begin in late 2005 or early 2006. The cost of the 6.2-km bridge, the longest in the country, would be around Tk 7,000 crore, with Tk 5,000-crore foreign aid. He also disclosed that the government is mulling over a sixth China-Bangladesh friendship bridge at Mokhtarpur. The communications minister spoke of a number of steps his ministry has undertaken to modernise the country's railway system, among which a process is now underway to extend the broad-gauge rail-lines from Khulna and Rajshahi up to Dhaka. He also listed some future plans of his ministry to develop the country's communication structure, including a long-term programme to establish a multi-modal transport system.
| 
