Vehicles must comply with load limits on highways

The maintenance of the nation's main communication artery for cargo-laden trucks, the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway, is getting costlier. The reason is that the multi-axle, multi-wheel cargo-laden trucks reportedly carry disproportionately more load than their permissible limits. The result is that the highway has been subjected to more pressure than it can withstand according to its design. Strangely though, rather than strictly monitoring and penalising overloading, the Roads and Highway Department (RHD) during the previous autocratic government bowed to the irrational demands of the transport owners and the so-called transport workers' union leaders. In consequence, the load limits for trucks with different types of axle were increased violating the norm.

Thus, the RHD allowed 2-axle trucks with 15-tonne capacity to carry 22 tonnes. Similarly, the load limits for 3-axle, 4-axle and higher-axle tucks were also exceeded in contravention of international standards. However, the authorities of that time tried to justify their decision of raising load limits for trucks under consideration with the strange argument that it saved fuel, reduced the number of vehicles to carry the same amount of load and helped ease traffic tangles, saved time, etc. They even did come up with some figures to substantiate their claim.

Notably, a recently-conducted study by the RHD found that the magnitude of damage done to Dhaka-Chattogram Highway due to plying of overloaded trucks was estimated to be around Tk8.61 billion. The amount saved from allowing overloaded trucks to transport cargoes and their claimed use of less fuel were learnt to be deducted from the damage estimation. However, based on the data analysis of overloaded vehicles from Sitakundu Axle Load Station in FY 2023-24, the damage estimate for the entire 190-km Dhaka-Chattogram highway would grossly come to around Tk 12.31 billion.

However, mere assessment of the damage caused by allowing overloaded trucks alone will not make the roads usable. Maintenance work for potholed and rutted roads need also to be carried out simultaneously. Unfortunately, the maintenance work for the highway, too, was inordinately delayed during the previous government. The RHD in 2019 undertook a maintenance project worth over Tk7.93 billion to strengthen the road and keep it operational. The project was to be completed by June 2023. But the bureaucratic procrastination in approval process caused the delay. At last, the RHD sought another Tk1.89 billion and two more years from the then-government to complete the maintenance work by June 2025. However, ouster of  previous government put an end to the maintenance work. Nevertheless, uninterrupted vehicular movement and the further damage it has been inflicting on the already rutted road have only increased the urgency of completing maintenance and repair work of the country's most important economic corridor.

Now, under no circumstance overloading of cargo trucks should be allowed.  The changes in the load policy made by the previous autocratic government between 2016 and 2020 have to be reversed. For sustainability of the country's road infrastructure, axle load control is a must, experts recommend. Being a signatory to the UN  treaty and UN Convention  on road and motor transport 1949 and Vienna convention 2019, Bangladesh is obliged to go by these international standards.

Since the RHD authority under the interim government is not beholden to any political  quarters, transport owners and workers' union leaders, there should be no problem for it  to apply the rules of load management for all vehicles without exception.  This is urgent for protecting the highways from unnecessary damage.