Slow pace of data collection by field officials is holding back the Roads and Highways Department’s (RHD) initiative to create a database for automatically assessing the condition of bridges and culverts and suggesting remedial actions.

Despite repeated reminders over the last eight months, the department has as of August 21 got data of only 67 bridges and culverts out of over 18,000, officials said.

RHD has 4,404 bridges including 856 Bailey bridges and 14,814 culverts.  

The poor response from field officials also put the department in a spot of bother as the International Cooperation Agency (Jica), which funds the project for the new Bridge Management Software (BMS), wrote to the department in July to make it effective.

Against this backdrop, Rowshan Ara Khanam, additional chief engineer (bridge management wing) of RHD, wrote to the officials concerned on August 5 and asked them to give necessary inputs to the software “immediately”. 

It was the latest of several letters since those designated field-level officials were directed to submit data from January onwards. 

A top official of RHD’s planning and data circle, however, said field officers could not provide information due to other engagements between January and June, the busiest period of the year for them.

Another RHD official, who is also a master trainer, said bridge inspection is a time-consuming process, and the BMS requires 26 types of data that takes about a week to collect from a single medium-sized bridge. 

BMS was developed under the Bridge Management Capacity Development Project, which started in November 2016 and was completed in December 2018. The cost of the project was Tk 31 crore. 

The purpose of developing this software was to create an automatic and flawless database and to get advanced information about the “structural health” of bridges and culverts so that their lifespan can be extended by taking timely measures.

Under the project, manuals on using BMS and creating the database were also prepared. Besides, 333 people including 72 master trainers were given necessary training. 

Currently, RHD has Bridge Maintenance Management System (BMMS), which was last updated in 2013. 

POOR SHOW OF DATA COLLECTION

After the collapse of two Bailey bridges in May, The Daily Star contacted the Bridge Management Wing of RHD to know about the latest condition of the Bailey bridges. But the wing could not give any recent data on how many of them are vulnerable. 

Officials said they started collecting data in January to learn about the condition of the bridges and hoped to get information on major bridges within a year.  

But over the last eight months, data collection has been going on at a frustratingly slow pace, which was reflected in Rowshan Ara’s August 5 letter.

On several occasions, the RHD chief engineer asked field officials to give inputs in the software but they did not comply, the letter said, adding, “As a result, questions shroud over the possible outcome of the TK 31 crore project.” 

The letter also mentioned Jica’s July 10 reminder and said the delay in implementation will also “tarnish the image” of the department before the road transport and bridges ministry and Jica. 

It also said that despite repeated directives, the progress in data collection and entry was not satisfactory, and it may cause difficulties in “budgetary allocation for bridges and culverts in the current and subsequent fiscal years.”

Hafizur Rahman, a superintendent engineer (planning and data circle) of RHD, who oversees the whole process of data collection and software management, on August 21 said field officials could not provide information due to their pressing engagements between January and June.

Sources said officials are usually busy with projects, their approvals and budgets, and other desk jobs in the first half of a fiscal year and in the second half, they are usually working more on the field repairing and building roads and bridges.

“Now we hope to make significant progress [in collecting information] in the next two to three months,” he said, adding that they would first collect information about bridges and then culverts.

Asked about the risk of not having updated data, Hafizur said, “Our field-level officials are regularly monitoring those structures.” 

Additional Chief Engineer Rowshan Ara last month said, “We are getting response but not at the expected level. So, we issued the letter.”

She said the absence of a dedicated workforce for inspection and lack of some special equipment to assess large bridges are causing the delay. 

“The sooner we get the information, the better it will be, because the software will monitor the condition of the bridges properly.”