Sources in the WDB said that it would be impossible to repair even one tenth of the 30-kilometre road that runs from Tongi to Kellar Moar. The WDB is now seeking help from the Roads and Highways Department (R&HD), which has 'in-built resources' to develop any road.

"This is the only bypass road that could greatly help reduce traffic congestion in the city but nobody cares about it," said an engineer of the WDB.

"We immediately need to widen the road to facilitate more volumes of vehicles which are arriving from the northern parts of the country and destined for the old part of the city bypassing traffic congestions of the city centre," said the WDB official requesting not to be named.

The official said that over 400 feet of land along the Flood Protection Embankment, on which the road was built, have already been acquired by the WDB.

"We just need to develop the road, there is no problem of land," he said.

Nowadays thousands of commuters in buses, trucks, taxis and other vehicles are forced to take the run-down road to commute to the old city avoiding the city centre traffic. The ride at the Gabtoli end is like negotiating a trip on the rough surface on the moon, where both vehicles and passengers are constantly at risk of breaking down and sustaining injuries.

The Water Development Board (WDB) built the road on the Dhaka Flood Protection Embankment in 2003. Despite its bad shape, the road is used by thousands of people in Mohammadpur, Rayerbazar, Hazaribagh, Kamrangirchar, Nawabpur, Chawkbazar, Lalbagh, Swari Ghat, Babubazar and Sadarghat areas. People prefer this shortcut to their destination rather than entering the city roads, which are always choked with traffic.

If the road is made usable for normal traffic, residents in the western part of the city could travel to Sadarghat in minutes. They could also reach the Savar highway, avoiding traffic snarls on the Mirpur Road. Normally from Dhanmondi, it takes over an hour to reach Sadarghat through the congested city during daytime.

The bypass winds its way around the western fringe of the city ensuring a traffic-free passage to those areas. After the interim government came to power, authorities removed hundreds of shops, markets, mosques and slums, which had almost choked the thoroughfare.

Local people said that the areas around the bypass are poor and therefore there is no government initiative to repair it.

WDB's Operations and Maintenance officials blamed the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) for "destroying the road" at Gabtoli end. They said that for over two years DCC illegally chose a vast area along the bypass to dump wastes.

DCC's Waste Management Division officials however said that they had stopped dumping rubbish at Gabtoli embankment area. "We have moved the site to a far away area in Aminbazar where sanitary landfill is in force," said an official requesting anonymity.