Prioritization of Storm Water Drain Construction for an Urban Area in the Chittagong Hill Tracts Region of Bangladesh

Developing the urban drainage system is now a common issue in most developing countries like Bangladesh. Due to rapid urbanization, drainage related problems are identified as high priority by Municipal residents. Therefore, Municipal Drainage System needs to be developed in such a way that it functions in the long term resulting optimization of the used resources. Storm water flood hazard due to inadequate drain is a major concern in the Municipalities in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Regions of Bangladesh. To address the issue, drainage master plans have been prepared for the three Municipalities in the CHT under the Urban Governance and Infrastructure Improvement Project (UGIIP) of Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) funded by Asian Development Bank (ADB). Under this master plan, 78 independent drains are proposed that would be implemented over a period of 10 years. The problem of the master plan implementation is that the available fund for drain construction in each year is a fraction of the total requirement. Considering the situation, the aim of the study is to develop a priority ranking schedule for drain construction. Development of the Multi-Criteria framework for prioritization of storm drain works is the methodology for this research. The outcome of the research is the year-wise implementation schedule of drain construction over the planning period based on available funds for a particular year.