Construction of Important Bridges on Rural Roads Project (63 no Bridges)

Bangladesh is an agricultural country and about 70% of the total population lives in rural areas. Extreme population pressure on limited cultivable land and its skewed distribution are creating landlessness problem in the rural areas. Apart from the limited non-farm employment opportunities is causing widespread poverty. According to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2010, surveyed by Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BBS) based on average per capita calorie intake it shows that the absolute poor is 31.22% of national, 33.09% of rural, and 27.19% of urban population as poor. But the rural infrastructures are creating employment opportunities decreasing rural poverty recently.

An established fact that as the majority of the population live in the rural areas, the overall development of the country depends on the development of the rural economy. Rural development is aiming at improving standard of living of the rural poor. Government of Bangladesh has emphasized on efficient rural transportation network for easy movement of commodities that will ensure reasonable price of agricultural products and raise purchasing power of the rural poor. Consequently it will improve their living standard and change in rural economy. For these reasons the Seventh Five Year Plan stresses on the development and maintenance of transport infrastructures in Bangladesh. In the case of the rural infrastructures, there are specific objectives in Seventh Five Year Plan. Improvement and maintenance of rural infrastructures, Create direct employment opportunities for the rural poor and the destitute women through improvement and maintenance rural infrastructures, Create indirect employment opportunity in road transport, trading and other farm and non-farm sectors, Improve utilization of health and education services facilities.

Participation of community people in development work and promote good governance, and Contribute towards poverty reduction at the local level which will consequently ensure gender equality and empower women through generation of employment. Because the road network development including construction of Bridges/culverts, rural market development and rural electrification are being considered as the most important elements to reduce poverty through generating labor employment scope. So Rural Development Project is playing a pivotal role in this respect. The efficiency of Production, Exchange, Distribution and Consumption of different products depend on the smooth road network communication.

Sometimes Construction of road structures creates social and environmental hazards instead of social and environmental benefit. So rural infrastructure development project is essentially required for study before finally formulating the project to avoid the loss of investment. Importance of rivers has been recognized since time immemorial and rivers have occupied a very prominent place in every stage of human development. With the incoming of modernization and mechanization of human life, water and hence, rivers are becoming more and more important. They provide us water for industrial use and are a source of cheap energy. Rivers have always been satisfying our domestic, municipal, irrigation, and other demands and that is why most of our cities were established in the vicinity of the natural rivers. In the primitive times, there was absolutely no control on these natural rivers and hence they used to cause tremendous devastations and troubles to human beings. But with the development of science and technology, man has devised and is devising means and ways to control these mighty rivers.

On the other hand, different phases of economic activities like Production, Exchange, Distribution and consumption in solving Economic Problems in Bangladesh dependent on the smooth road network communication. But Sometimes Construction of road structures create social and environmental hazards instead of social and environmental benefit. So the bridges are required to study for social, economic, environmental and technical aspect to foresee whether there is any adverse effect on the rural socio-economic development flow and finally we have to examine through study whether the bridges will affect the environment after construction. Development of uninterrupted communication of the road is necessary for socio- economic changes of an area. A Bridge construction provides easy access within the Upazilla and its adjoining areas, ensure marketing facilities for agricultural products, accelerate farm and non-farm activities and thus creates employment opportunities for the working class population which in turn will reduce poverty. As such, whether the proposed project will fulfill the objectives of the Government's National Plan and Sectorial objective of the Sustainable Development Goal or not need to be studied. The importance of the rural infrastructures on rural roads have various influence on the socio-economic changes in the life of rural poor people. Also rural infrastructures have negative impact, so a formal Economic Feasibility Study should be carried out before starting the construction of the bridges.