Staff Reporter :
An important thoroughfare in the city, which connects Purabi and Kalshi in Mirpur, is now in an extremely bad shape due to numerous potholes, causing immense suffering to commuters.
Due to heavy traffic pressure and reluctance by the authorities concerned for the road renovation for unknown reason, the condition of the 1.4-kilometre road is deteriorating every day, locals have alleged.
The Purabi-Kalshi road connects the 1.8-kilometre flyover, which extends from Matikata to Airport Road at Zia Colony, easing up the city’s traffic movement among Mirpur, Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Uttara, Banani, Gulshan and Mohakhali areas.
But the objective of the flyover construction has apparently failed as the commuters often compel to use
the alternative roads in such an abnormal situation. In most of the cases, the private car drivers avoid the dilapidated road and use alternative roads to reach the flyover.
To add to the woes of the commuters, the construction work of a culvert near the Journalists Housing Society has shrunk the road to such an extent that only one vehicle can pass through each side of the culvert at a time as the maximum portions of the culvert are not open to traffic yet, triggering a total chaos in traffic movement.
In reality, the authorities responsible for implementing the project have not taken any alternative measure so that at least two vehicles could pass through the culvert point from both directions.
Official sources said the under-construction 90-feet-long culvert which replaced a 40-feet one is part of a project to expand the 60 feet wide road to 120 feet to ease traffic.
Even worse, once a car gets stuck, it cannot turn back due to a road divider that has no opening anywhere near the stretch leading to the culvert construction site.
A five-minute ride on this road can take more than half an hour. Besides, the situation turns worse after rains, as the road then goes under knee-deep water due to the poor drainage system.
Around 2000 buses of different companies and private cars ply on the road a day. The number of vehicles was supposed to be its double, said officials of the Dhaka North City Corporation [DNCC].
Although around 10,000 vehicles are supposed to be plying on the flyover every day, the figure currently stood at 5,000 due to the poor condition of Purabi-Kalshi road, officials said.
Not only that, the authorities have completed footpaths on both sides of the road about three months ago. But the footpaths have gone under the grip of shop owners due to lack of proper supervision.
The project was supposed to be completed by December last year. But nobody knows when it will be done. “We have completed only 50 per cent of the work in the meantime,” Project Director Lt Colonel Saiful Islam has said.
Earlier, the project director had said that the project would end by June last year. He, however, had later justified the delay, saying that there had been significant changes in the components of the project.
It is to be noted that the DNCC is doubling the width of the 1.4-kilometre long road between Kalshi and Purabi to deal with the huge traffic generated after the inauguration of the Mirpur-Airport Road Flyover in March last year.
During the extension work, the authorities have evicted a large number of encroachers by the roadside for development of drainage system and construction of footpath.
Locals said when the army started the extension work last year, they evicted illegal occupiers from both sides, but they had begun to return. Even the authorities have not evicted as yet a tin shade room and a tea stall beside it for unknown reason.
Project director Saiful Islam said they are doing the work to develop infrastructure for facilitating the movement of VVIPs, including cricketers, to the Mirpur National Cricket Stadium.
Officials said the expansion project was undertaken by the DNCC to deal with the heavy flow of traffic, which increased after the inauguration of the Mirpur-Airport Road Flyover last year, under the supervision of the Bangladesh Army’s 14 Engineering Brigade.
In fact, the work of widening the road along with storm sewers worth Tk 18 crore had begun before the T-20 World Cup tournament in February last year. After some impressive initial progress, the work almost stopped once the tournament was over.
Under the expansion project, 23-kilometre road will be widened, lampposts and traffic signs will be installed and 20.5-kilometre road will be beautified.
The Local Government Engineering Division [LGED] is implementing the Tk 115 crore project, Tk 92 crore from the government exchequer and the remaining amount from DNCC funds, said the officials.
Mohammad Jasim, who lives in Mirpur-11 [adjacent to Kalshi road], said: “Negligence on the contractor’s part and the lack of supervision by the city corporation are to be blamed for the unnecessary delay.”
Md Awal Khan , who drives a human hauler, said his earnings had dropped by 30 percent from the recent months due to the poor condition of the road. “Spending of Tk 500 to 1000 almost every day is a regular phenomenon for repairing the vehicle due to the bad shape of the road,” he said.
