However, the above is not to say that this writer is not fully appreciative of much developmental works accomplished by the present government in Bangladesh under its tenures. From timely distribution of text books to millions of children to augmenting power production and taking on the dream Padma Bridge project with country’s own resources, one has to  reasonably take note of the wide ranging long list of developmental achievements  under this government. Nonetheless, the question that looms large in many minds today is : whether there is a missing element of all round accomplishments despite the taking on of so many projects and marking progress on them in varying degrees. For example, let us see the attainments in relation to the Mayor Hanif flyover, the country’s biggest one so far that was opened to traffic in 2013. It has played a part no doubt in easing entry into Dhaka from adjacent townships and beyond. But is this flagship infrastructure delivering optimally ?
As it is only about one-fourth of its potential users are actually using it because the rest consider the charges or tolls of using it as too high. The matter has not been solved even though nearly two years have passed since its official gala opening.
And the roads on the two sides  beneath this flyover are a             anything but roads. Full of potholes or even ditches in some places, these have practically become unusable but vehicles operators have hardly the choice of an alternative and only curse any authority they can think of for their suffering on this score.  Following the formal opening of this flyover, the roads below it were carpeted or seemingly well paved. But within six months, the roads started  crumbling  and  the process continues as the users think that fatal accidents may happen here if repaving is not done immediately.
The Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) spent Tk 72 crore to repair the dilapidated roads under the flyover  last year amid public outcry and sufferings during the rainy season .The DSCC also put up another Tk 7 crore project for development of a drainage system to put an end to waterlogging on the road. We cannot help but ask if these allocations have any real purpose of alleviating the distresses of people when in all appearances they are for lining up the pockets of plundering contractors and their accomplices in the Nagar Bhaban.
Here we  also have several points to ponder. A major infrastructure is built at huge costs but instead of its delivering on large scale to its users, its use remains limited as a result of lack of decisiveness on the part of  its operators in  resolving the toll issue that frustrates spreading  the benefit of using it to the greatest  number. Secondly, the horribly broken down roads under it are regularly creating exasperating traffic jams . So, can we blame somebody if he or she in great disillusionment  looks up at this flyover and  questions its utility ?  Indeed, this flyover could be a model, an example of  well rounded erecting of an infrastructure that on completion starts  providing all round benefits on a lasting basis.
People in ordinary walks of life and they are the majority, they  care  or perhaps understand little  about gross increases to the GDP, industrialization of the northern region and other benefits to accrue from the building of the Padma Bridge. They form their evaluation of the administration usually from what  hands down improvement or otherwise they see and experience  in their immediate surroundings. In this sense, life of the millions of residents in the capital city today is one of much hopelessness and helplessness.
As it is, the on going works of  other flyovers in the city, specially the Magbazar one, is a case in point. People are told that their ease of movement will go up remarkably  when this project will be  completed. But they have been waiting year after year fruitlessly for its completion when the work schedules  of this project was changed several times, costs and time of construction escalated and  more notably the roads on the two sides were left in very dilapidated conditions posing very great difficulties for not only vehicular traffic but also pedestrians to make their way through the mess.
Only recently the roads under this under construction flyover was somewhat tidied up but no one has any answer to why it took so long. Also people doubt whether the repaired roads  here will last and not meet the  same fate of the roads under the Mayor Hanif flyover.
Tales of bad roads and growing sufferings of commuters in the capital city  are unending and adding chapters of further worse conditions every day.  Dilapidated roads extend from Malibagh Rail Gate to Chowdhurypara, Malibagh Mor to Rajarbagh, and from Malibagh Mor to Maghbazar to Hatirjheel. Tattered road condition are  found at Rampura,  Tejgaon, Shantinagar, Tejgaon, Postogola, Wari, Khilgaon, Mugda, Bashabo, Kamalapur, Syedabad, Jatrabari, Demra, Dholpur, Matuail, Shyampur, Mohakhali and other parts.
Life on these  roads, mostly potholed, bereft of bitumen cover and unprecedentedly crammed, turns into a new mess each morning as people come out of homes, going to work where they routinely fail to arrive on time due to hours lost on the way due to traffic jams caused by such battered road conditions.
Dhaka's traffic jams eat up about Tk 550 billion every year, said experts in this field. The estimated loss is now 50% more than what it was in 2010, said  the team leader of a study carried out to assess the financial loss in traffic congestion.The study jointly conducted by the Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI) and Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Bangladesh, said that the cost of traffic congestion in capital Dhaka  is  around Tk 1 billion a day.
Yet, life goes by as usual in this vast city of  over  15 million people, as per conservative estimates. The  administration and two newly chosen city Mayors, meanwhile, keep telling the exhausted and exasperated residents that remedy is ahead, just around the corner, and to be patient.
Many crores of  Taka have been simply drained away several times in installing automatic traffic signaling systems just to be given up and go back to manual signaling again. Who  accounts for such
gross misspending of taxpayers’ money?  None.
Dhaka acquired the appearance of a flooded city in the last rainy season pointing to its awfully dysfunctional drainage system. Water logging on such a scale and intensity was never before seen in Dhaka pointing to where the priorities in planning and expenditure should be. But it does not  seem that those who matter care in the least.

The writer is Associate Editor of theindependent. E-mail: [email protected]/[email protected]