Dhaka, April 23 -- Goods-laden vehicles of higher axles carry much higher than allowable weight limit compared to those with lower axles, thereby contributing to damaging expensive road infrastructure 16 times, according to a new study.

Such overloading caused an increase in maintenance cost per single lane per kilometre at Tk 0.615 million without counting other issues like accident and damage to vehicles, officials said.

Roads and Highways Department (RHD) in a study under a JICA-funded technical project on 'Sitakunda Axle Load Control Station' also found that overloading trend was higher towards Chattogram than towards Dhaka.

However, 7.76-per cent vehicles on both directions violated the allowable weight limit from 5.0 per cent to ...