Dhaka: People going home on Eid holidays will not have to suffer on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway as the government claims to have taken necessary steps in this regard, claims concerned minister.

Road Transport and Bridges Minister M Obaidul Quader on Saturday said the Dhaka-Mymensingh four-lane highway would be opened to traffic this month as the work completes on 30 June.

“I hope the homebound people won’t suffer this time,” he said while addressing a dialogue held at BRAC Centre Inn auditorium as the chief guest.

Apparently taking a swipe at his critics, the minister said all talk tall but the reality is very hard. “It’s very easy to make big promises but difficult to deliver own promises.”

He said he knows how challenging the Dhaka-Chittagong four-lane highway implementation is “because I visited 103 times the project site in the last 3.5 years.”

Quader said works on 140 kilometres, out of 192 kilometres, have already been completed. “It was a difficult task in a country like Bangladesh to relocate mosques, madrasahs and temples from the road.”

About Padma Bridge, he said, “It’s no longer a dream but a visible reality. I invite you all to come and see our progress.”

He said all roads linking the Padma Bridge will be four-lane ones.

Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), a civil society think tank, arranged the dialogue on ‘Trade Facilitation in South Asia through Transport Connectivity: Operationalising the Motor Vehicle Agreements (MVAs)’ that signed by Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (BBIN).