Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has instructed the authorities concerned to gradually bring regional highways under a toll system.
This will be the first time that tolls will be levied on using regional highways.
Secretary of the Planning Division Satyajit Kumar said the PM at the National Economic Council (ECNEC) meeting on Tuesday underscored the government's heavy investment on highways.
He quoted PM Hasina as saying that collecting the money on regional highways in this way would foster a culture of paying tolls among the people.
Regional highways make up a 4897.71km network of roads in the country. Besides those, there are also national highways and zilla highways.
Roads and Highways Department officials told The Business Standard that currently toll is being collected only from the Dhaka-Mawa Highway, which is a national highway.
At a briefing following the meeting, Planning Minister MA Mannan said the government had invested thousands of crores in the construction of regional highways.
"We will not mind paying a nominal amount to drive on these roads," he said.
Regional Highways connect different regions and new district headquarters not connected by national highways and zilla roads. Regional highways are named after national highways of national importance. Names and numbers of these highways are decided such as Cumilla-Lalmai, R-140, whereas R stands for Regional meaning the Region. This number can only be changed by RHD headquarters.
National Highways connect the national capital with different divisional and old district headquarters, port cities and international highways. These roads have been categorised as national highways considering the national importance and geographical positions. Each national highway has been provided with a name and a number, such as Dhaka-Chattogram Highway has been numbered N-1 whereas N stands for National. This number can only be changed by RHD headquarters.
Zilla Roads are defined as roads connecting upazila headquarters and other important rural centres with the existing road network. The names and numbers of these roads are decided such as Akhaura-Agartala, Z-1203 whereas Z stands for Zilla.
