Two Dhaka City Corporations and other civic bodies have dug up at least 700 roads and road stretches at a time, forcing residents to take detours leading to a messy traffic in the capital.
Flying dust and potholes on the roads are also making it tough for motorists and pedestrians to deal with the situation, causing a sheer inconvenience for them.
Sources said, the Dhaka City Corporations are the main perpetrators of road diggings this time followed by WASA, DESA, Telecom, TItas and Metro Rail Development Authority.
Dhaka city consists of some 2200 kilometer of roads and digging has been done on 50 per cent of the roads for various purposes like carpeting, laying pipeline and cables, widening drains and erecting footpaths and metro rail.
Besides, constriction materials, sands and soils remained piled up besides these roads creating sufferings to the pedestrians.
Stretches of these roads have been dug two months back. Since the digging up, the civic bodies especially city corporations have been taking their own time to repair them.
At a few locations, the authorities took up minor repair works but still majority of road portion is yet to be repaired. As a result, city dwellers are being forced to take alternate route leading to a messy traffic, officials said
They said, major portions of roads have been dug by the two city corporations for hurriedly completion of development work during the dry season.
“We have given the permission to several civic bodies and contractors for conducting development work on city roads under some conditions. But it is learnt that they are not following the conditionalities increasing sufferings to city dwellers. We are trying our best to reduce the sufferings,” Mohammad Asaduzzaman, Additional Chief Engineer of Dhaka South City Corporation told The New Nation yesterday.
While paying visit to some city roads, this correspondent found that roads and road stretches in Mirpur, Mohammdpur, Khilgaon, Malibagh, Laxmi Bazar, Lalmatia, Dhanmondi, Tikatuli, Hatkhola, Jatrabari, Syedabad, Basaboo, Motijheel, Arambagh, Mouchak, Segunbagicha, Paltan, Kamlapur, Rampura, Badda, Gulshan, Baridhara and Uttara have been dug up due to various development works.
Road stretching from Mirpur-10 circle to Agargaon has also been dug up due to construction of Metro Rail Project.
Digging of this road has led to slow traffic movement leading to huge inconvenience for the commuters. Usually, a commuter has to spend 10-20 minutes to cross the road but now it is taking more than an hour, according to the commuters.
“The authorities have begun digging of the road in September and it will continue for next two months,” Abul Hossain, a construction worker, told The New Nation on Saturday.
“We have opened a one-stop cell to coordinate the development work. The cell is time to time monitoring the diggings and advising the contractors so that suffering of the city dwellers can be eased,” Syed Kutubullah, Additional Chief Engineer of Dhaka North City Corporation told The New Nation on yesterday.
“The city authorities and civic bodies are launching development work in an unplanned manner creating roads shoddy and messy for traffic. It’s a common feature every year and the commuters face immense problem to deal with the situation,” Prof Nazrul Islam, an urban planner, told The New Nation on Saturday.
“It would also be helpful to the public if a single civic authority takes up the responsibility to oversee such work,” he added.
