Our Correspondent :
Ferry service is being disrupted as there is only one ferry terminal at Aricha and Kazirhat. The service has resumed on the Aricha-Kazirhat route after being closed for 28 hours due to a broken ferry pontoon. A ferry named Begum Sufia Kamal was loaded at the pontoon of Aricha Ghat at 8.30 am on Monday.
According to BIWTC sources, the ferry service was temporarily suspended when the pontoon ram of the Aricha ferry Ghat broke around 5:30 pm on Sunday. Authorities began repairing the pontoon after 6pm on Monday. The pontoon repair work ended Monday morning after working all night. Then the ferry service started from 8:30 am on Monday.
Ferry service on the Aricha-Kazirhat route is closed for 27 hours till 8:30 am on Monday. Hundreds of freight trucks and private cars and microbuses were stranded at ArichaGhat. The ferry authorities advised the stranded vehicles to take an alternative route. In this situation, some people take the alternative route, but many stay at ArichaGhat and spend the night in the private car, microbus waiting at the dock.
The ferry crossed the river on Monday morning. They have to spend sleepless nights sitting on the dock at night. Most of them were passengers of Pabna-Ishwardi. As the ferry is closed, they have to suffer immensely. Women passengers have the most difficulty with children.
As the ferry was closed on Monday morning, a long line of freight trucks from the ferry ghat area to the police station junction and a crowd of private cars and microbuses were seen in the ghat area.
A microbus driver said, “We arrived at ArichaGhat at 6 pm to go to Pabna.” I spent the night at ArichaGhat as the ferry was closed.
A private car driver said, “We used to travel to Pabna through Bangabandhu Bridge.” This route takes a lot of time. It takes much less time to travel through Aricha. We have been on this route since the ferry was launched. There are various problems like wreckage of ghats and ferries. If so, it is difficult to travel through here.
BIWTC Aricha Ghat Manager, Abu Abdullah said, repairs to the pontoon were completed at 8:30 a.m. Monday (June 14).
Since then the ferry service has started. He added that Aricha and Kazirhat have only one Ghat each. Due to which the ferry service is stopped from time to time due to various problems including sinking and breaking of the pontoon’s RAM. He said the problem would not have arisen if there were two more alternative Ghats on both sides.
