Construction of five flyovers in Rajshahi city, being built at a cost of around Tk540 crore, has yet to be completed even after four years, causing growing traffic congestion and public suffering across the city.
The flyovers were planned to ease traffic congestion and improve road connectivity throughout the city’s metropolitan area. However, prolonged construction work has disrupted normal traffic movement, particularly around Railgate.
While construction of the other flyovers has made significant progress, work on the Railgate flyover is lagging behind. Around 35 per cent of the work on the project has been completed so far.
With one side of the road remaining closed for an extended period, vehicles are being diverted through narrow alternative routes. Construction materials placed along the roads have further reduced available space, causing traffic to move slowly and increasing congestion during busy hours.
For residents, the daily commute has become an ordeal. What was once a short journey now takes twice as long. Officegoers, students, and traders alike navigate a maze of diversions and delays, their patience tested with every passing day. The economic cost – measured in lost hours and disrupted businesses – is harder to quantify, but no less real.
Officials involved in the project said delays were caused by complications related to payment of bills and the relocation of utility lines.
These are familiar obstacles in large-scale infrastructure projects, but familiarity does not make them any less frustrating for the people who live with the consequences.
Amid growing public frustration, the Rajshahi City Corporation (RCC) has recently urged the authorities and contractors involved to speed up construction and complete the projects as soon as possible.
City residents hope that the remaining work will be completed without further delay and that the affected roads will soon return to normal traffic, reducing the daily hardship caused by the ongoing construction.
For now, the flyovers remain incomplete: half-built monuments to ambition and delay. And the people of Rajshahi continue to wait, hoping that the roads they were promised will one day be the roads they can finally use.
