& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

From road to river

Md. Alamgir
WE can imagine a road 100 years back where only bullock carts, horse carts and elephant and donkey drawn vehicles traveled. No mechanical sound could be heard nor could any smoke be seen on the road. Today, this is quite unimaginable. With conversion of horse cart to car in the 19th century the transport system of this country gradually shifted to roads and has finally reached a stage where there is no safe passage for vehicles on the roads, causing many road accidents every day. It is too expensive as well in terms of fuel cost and environmental cost.
Since our independence our population has more than doubled. The roads have not been broadened and developed to handle today's traffic load. Number of vehicles has gone up with increasing movement of people and goods. As a result, the roads are now too congested, resulting in frequent traffic jams, road accidents and loss of man-hours because of the longer than expected time to reach the destination. Added to these is the damage to people's health due to environmental and sound pollution.
Although it is not possible to go back to the blissful condition of 100 years back, it is possible to reduce the traffic jams on roads if we increase utilisation of our waterways.
Transportation of heavy containers has added to the load on the roads. Chittagong port alone handles about 120,000 containers every month. That is, about 4,000 heavy containers move on the
Dhaka-Chittagong road every day. That shows how difficult it is to maintain the roads.
A truck loaded with a container takes about 20 hours to reach Dhaka from Chittagong. The waterway distance between Dhaka and Chittagong is about 170 nautical miles (315 Km). A feeder container ship of 150 to 200 containers, loaded from mother vessel at Chittagong outer anchorage, will take about 15 to 20 hours to reach Dhaka from Chittagong.
A truck with one container takes 170 liters of fuel for back and forth travel between Chittagong and Dhaka, whereas a container vessel which carries 140 Twenty Feet Equivalent Units (TEU) consumes approximate 8,500 liters of fuel for a to-and-fro trip between Dhaka and Chittagong. The difference in fuel consumption between road and river transport will amount to a saving of 109 liters per container. Therefore, carriage of 1.5 million containers by waterway will save 150,000 tons of fuel per year. In today's market, the cost of saved fuel will about $120 million. At the same time vehicles on the roads will
save approximately half of the fuel cost due to ease of traffic. Loss of man-hours due to traffic jam will decrease, and the number of accidents will be reduced.
The contribution to the environment will be enormous. Heating of environment as well as emission of carbon dioxide and other harmful substances will decrease proportionately. Climate funds from donor organisations may also be utilised in doing research and development in the water transport sector of this riverine nation. Funds also may be utilised to facilitate construction of new ships as well as dredging of waterways to maintain the depth of navigable waters.
Department of Shipping, Government of Bangladesh has already issued licenses for production of 32 container vessels of about 140 TEUs. Estimated cost of each vessel is $5 million. Only a few shipyards of our country have experience of building this type of vessels of international standard. Donor agencies and government should come forward to finance such shipyards to build such ships.
About 50 oil tankers of capacity 600 ton to 2,200 ton are already under construction in Bangladesh. They will transport fuel to power plants and edible oil to factories from Chittagong to other places of the country. These vessels are expected to be delivered in 1 to 2 years time.
Similarly, government and other stakeholders must work together to promote safe and fast passenger transportation on the rivers. The major disadvantage of passenger transportation by waterways is that the vessels are too slow. Such disadvantage can be overcome by good design of passenger vessel that will enable it to operate at 30 to 40 km per hour, which is better compared to a vehicle on the road that moves at an average speed of less than 30 km per hour due to traffic jam.
Considering remarkable savings in fuel consumption and environmental cost as well as easing of traffic congestion, a riverine country like Bangladesh must pay attention to water transport. We must urge our development partners to provide funds for development of inland water transport system that includes new-building shipyards, loading and discharging terminals, roads linking the terminals, and dredging of silt on river beds.
The writer is an Engineer Surveyor in an International Ship's Classification Society.