This additional financing will scale up the current road network development, under the Rural Connectivity Improvement Project, from 1,700 kilometers (km) to 2,630 km of rural roads. Inadequate rural transport and poor market infrastructure remain a challenge to Bangladesh’s rural development. Less than half of the rural population has access to all-weather roads, which make up less than a third of the total length of rural roads in the country. The Rural Connectivity Improvement Project supports the government’s Seventh Five Year Plan to increase the percentage of the country’s rural roads classified as good from 43% in 2016 to 80% in 2020. The overall project will continue to strengthen governance and institutional capacity in rehabilitating and maintaining rural roads with the use of a geographic information system to optimize monitoring of road conditions, thus sustaining an efficient rural road network that would boost further growth of the rural economy.

Source: Dhaka Tribune June 15, 2020 04:41 UTC