Battered roads dog Ctg dwellers

Spells of rain and intrusion of tidal water since June this year have left almost all the Chittagong city roads in a bad shape, causing immense sufferings to the city dwellers.
Many roads have become just unfit for traffic as lots of pot-holes and cracks have developed, leaving the commuters on the roads to face untold sufferings.
According to sources in the Chittagong City Corporation, about one-third of the city’s main roads were damaged under the impacts of adverse weather.
City planners, however, have blamed low quality construction and poor maintenance of roads for the damage.
Among the badly damaged roads are Airport Road, Agrabad Excess Road, Agrabad-EPZ Road, Port Connecting Road, Bayezid Bostami Road, Arakan Road, Bahaddarhat-Kalurght Road, Badurtala Road, Muradpur -Oxygen Road, Zakir Hossain Road and SS Khaled Road.
Many roads at the low-lying areas like Halishahar, Agrabad CDA Residential Area, Chaktai, Khatunganj, Bakalia, Kalurghat were damaged severely as the areas often are inundates by high tide in rainy season.
Besides, the main road stretching from Bahaddarhat to Lalkhan Bazar area is particularly in a bad condition for the constructions of Aktaruzzaman Flyover under the management of Chittagong Development Authority.
According to the witnesses, the layer of bitumen on different roads has been washed away in rain water while cracks and pot-holes have developed on many roads.
‘My journey to and from my office in a terrible experience because of the potholes on the road,’ said Habibur Rahman, an employee of a garment factory at Chittagong Export processing Zone.
Auto-rickshaw driver Nur Mohammad said vehicles like human haulers, three-wheelers and rickshaws often fall into the potholes on many roads, leading to road accidents.
‘Journey on the battered city roads is painful,’ said Nigar Sultana Chowdhury, a private job holder.
She said she needed at least one hour extra to reach her Agrabad office from Bahaddarhat area as vehicles have to move slowly for the damaged roads.
‘The rundown streets also cause huge losses to the transport owners and workers. Daily income has come down as the engines and other parts of vehicles are breaking down due to the battered condition of the roads,’ said Md Musa, president of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Sramik Federation (Chittagong region).
Urging the authorities concerned to repair the roads immediately, Musa said that the damaged roads were also responsible for traffic congestion in the city.
The city corporation sources have said there are 935 km of roads including the main thoroughfares, connecting roads, lanes and by lanes in the city. Of them, 560 km are carpeted with bitumen, 221 km made of cement concrete, 78 km are brick-soled and 74 km are mud roads.
‘We have 300 km main roads in the city. Rain and tidal water damaged 100 km of the main roads,’ said Monirul Huda, executive engineer of the corporation.
He said layer of bitumen of those roads was washed away by water.
‘Tk 200 crore will be required if we go to repair the damaged roads. At the moment we don’t have the amount. We are repairing the roads with what we have in our own fund. Every year the city corporation expends Tk 10-12 crore for this purpose. This year we will also expand the same amount, if needed,’ added Monirul Huda.
‘Repairs of some roads including Zakir Hossain Road have been completed while that of some roads including airport road is ongoing,’ added the engineer.
He said the CDA and the Roads and Highways Department construct roads in the city and the city corporation is mandated only to maintain them.
Forum for Planned Chittagong vice-president Subhash Barua, an urban planner, told New Age that some roads which were constructed or repaired last year were also wearing out this year, which proved that the quality of construction was low and the maintenance poor.
He said if the mixture of bitumen and other materials had been in proper quantities, rain could not have damaged the roads.
‘In every rainy season we do some temporary repairs to the roads with our own fund. If we want to do permanent repairs it will need a huge budget, which is not always available,’ said Lt Colonel Mohiuddin Ahmed, chief engineer of the city corporation.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net