|
Rivers:
Extensive and complex network of some 700 rivers. Major systems
Jamuna-Brahmaputra, Padma-Ganges, Surma-Meghna, and Padma-Meghna,
all of which flow south to Mouths of the Ganges and into Bay of
Bengal. Fifth major system Karnaphuli in Chittagong region.
Primary transportation system employing nearly 300,000 small and
medium-sized sail-and human-powered country boats. About 8,430
kilometers of navigable waterways.
Roads:
About 10,890 kilometers of motorable roads in 1986. Despite
severe flooding, increasingly important means of moving people
and goods. Extensive network of bridges and ferries cross
numerous inland waterways.
Railroads:
About 2,818
kilometers of track in 1986. Operated by Bangladesh Railways,
declining numbers of rolling stock as 1980s progressed.
Ports:
Chittagong and Chalna major freight-handling ports.
Airports:
Largest near Dhaka (Zia
International Airport) and at Chittagong and Sylhet. National
carrier Biman Bangladesh Airlines serving twenty-four cities in
twenty countries; domestic service to eighteen regional
airports.
Inland
Waterways and Ports
The
primary transportation system of Bangladesh is its extensive
inland waterways. Some 18.9 million tons of cargo (about 21
percent of the total) were moved by water transportation in FY
1986. As of early 1988, the country had 8,430 kilometers of
navigable waterways, of which up to 3,058 were main cargo
routes. There are seasonal difficulties in the navigability of
rivers and canals for the traditional country boats that
constitute the great bulk of the merchant fleet, but geography
and history have made these craft the preferred means of moving
goods between the ports on the Bay of Bengal and the interior
and between surplus and shortage regions of the country. As of
1987, the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation operated
a fleet of more than 480 vessels; about half were inland and
river barges, and the rest were used for coastal trade. The size
of the corporation's fleet had been steadily declining over the
years, but they still represented a substantial portion of the
registered watercraft.
The
total number of passenger- and cargo-carrying country boats
plying the vast river system was nearly 300,000 and was
increasing in the mid-1980s. Some of the larger boats use a
single sail to supplement manpower. The larger boats carry loads
up to thirty-five tons and operate with crews of three or more.
Generally, they are built with a raised platform at the stern of
the vessel, on which a man patiently walks back and forth with a
large-paddled oar, while others may pole
in
the shallow water or row from the sides. At times, the boats are pulled
with ropes from along the shore. These boats have a shallow draft,
necessary for navigating in the extensive but very shallow river system.
When loaded, the boats sit low in the water. Cargoes of raw jute or logs
from the mangrove forest of the Sundarbans may fill all the interior
space and project beyond the gunwales of the boat itself. Other cargoes
may be bagged or covered with cloth or bamboo meshwork. Country boats
are estimated to move more than 17 million tons of cargo yearly, on a
system of at least 1,400 launch landings and the major river ports of
Dhaka, Narayanganj, Chandpur, Barisal, and Khulna. Country boats are
unsuited for the Bay of Bengal or the broad Padma-Meghna estuary. Thus
coastal traffic of bulk agricultural goods is much smaller than inland
waterway traffic.
Traditional
and modern means of water transportation meet at the seaports of
Chittagong and Chalna, where most of Bangladesh's imports and exports
are transferred between dramatically different kinds of vessels. The
government-owned Bangladesh Shipping Corporation reportedly had
twenty-one oceangoing ships in its inventory in 1986, and the ships of
many other nations called at the major ports. Chittagong, the principal
port, has an excellent natural harbor and anchorage on the Karnaphuli
River, about five kilometers from the Bay of Bengal. The port facilities
were developed after 1947, and by 1970 Chittagong could berth 20 ships
at a time and handle 4 million tons of cargo annually. In FY 1985, the
port at Chittagong handled some 1,086 vessels and 6.2 million tons of
cargo. Chalna is on the Pusur River about sixty-four kilometers south of
the river port city of Khulna. Chalna was still being developed in the
late 1980s, but it was rapidly gaining on Chittagong in capacity and in
traffic, particularly as land and inland waterway connections also were
being improved to reorient the distribution system of the west and
northwest areas of the country to the newer port. The port at Chalna
handled more then 900 vessels and 7.5 million tons of cargo in FY 1995.
|
General Section
