The Roads and Highways Department (RHD) has a research organisation whose task includes conducting research on the country’s roads and highways and providing laboratory tests for soil, road construction materials and bitumen.
However, the organisation, which is as old as the department itself, has never had any researchers at all.
“Although the organisation’s purpose was to conduct research and do laboratory tests, our work has been limited mainly to laboratory test facilities for years,” Bangladesh Road Research Laboratory Director Ahsan Habib told Bangladesh First.
He said Bangladesh Road Research Laboratory has recently conducted six researches with the help of some universities including Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET), the Military Institute of Science and Technology (MIST) and some private universities at home and abroad.
“We are now conducting research by signing MoUs and taking some universities' support as we do not have any dedicated researchers posted in the existing organogram,” he added.
According to the RHD, the Bangladesh Road Research Laboratory is responsible for providing research, testing and advisory services to the department related to all aspects of construction materials and road pavement design to ensure efficiency.
“Filed-level engineers were posted at the Bangladesh Road Research Laboratory but they were transferred some years later; as a result, there are no permanent researchers at this wing of the RHD,” Ahsan Habib said.
“The organogram has never had the post of a scientific officer or a researcher. We have proposed new organograms twice to the ministry. However, the high officials in the ministry did not approve any of the organograms,” he added.
Ahsan Habib said that a new Road Research and Training Centre is being constructed next to the old Road and Training Centre in the capital’s Mirpur.
Funded by the Asian Development Bank, the building is being constructed under the SASEC Road Connectivity Project-2 and is scheduled to be completed by June 2024.
“The new building is being built but we don't have any posts for research. We will need researchers for the new research and training centre, but we still do not have any researchers,” Ahsan Habib further said, adding they need researchers to adopt new technologies and keep pace with the international standard.
He said that currently, they are doing research in collaboration with The University of Texas in Arlington.
The research is about the use of plastic in the construction of roads.
As a part of the research, they have constructed some portion of a road with plastic in Mohammadpur’s Beribadh in the city.
If the output of the research comes positive, they will take up pilot projects, said Ahsan Habib.
Presently, the tasks of the research and laboratory are limited to the test of the soil, road construction materials including bitumen, the director said.
When contacted, Road Transport and Highways Division’s secretary ABM Amin Ullah Nuri told Bangladesh First that they are making an organogram keeping posts of researchers.
“We don’t have any permanent set-up in the Bangladesh Road Research Laboratory, we will send the organogram to the Ministry of Public Administration for approval soon,” he added.
According to Professor Hadiuzzaman of BUET’s Department of Civil Engineering, “Every developed country has a separate research wing for construction of roads and highways. The main reason for research is to make an investment sustainable. As a result, they continuously conduct research as new materials are always coming for construction.”
“The Road Research Laboratory is set up based on that idea. But the capacity of the organisation could not be increased over the years,” he added.
Professor Hadiuzzaman said, “The government will have to recruit researchers. Their only work will be to conduct research to make the roads and highways of the country sustainable.”
“Considering the climate change and heatwave we will have to conduct a lot of research to learn to adapt. There is no alternative,” he added.
