Sagar Biswas :Home-goers’ sufferings deepend on Wednesday due to intermittent rains. At the same time, the long tailback on highways amid rains caused untold miseries to thousands of home-bound people ahead of the Eid-ul Azha festival.Journey by trains or launches was also delayed due to heavy rains since yesterday afternoon.Country’s highways witnessed season’s heaviest traffic on Wednesday when thousands of workers of readymade-garment sector started journey to their village homes by boarding different modes of transport. It caused huge tailback on the Dhaka-Aricha highway stretching from Nabinagar to Dhamrai. Traffic jam was found near DEPZ on the Nabinagar -Chandra highway, at Zirabo, Ashulia and Zamgarh points in the afternoon. “The volume of vehicles increased on Wednesday afternoon. The situation worsened due to slow movement of cattle laden trucks. Besides, rain damaged some parts of Nabinagar -Chandra highway, intensifying traffic jam,” Assistant Superintendent of Police of Savar Circle Md Eussel Sheikh said.He said, “Most of the RMG factories announced Eid vacation on the same day and lakhs of workers created immense pressures on transports.” Most of the important national and regional highways at present are facing severe gridlock where thousands of people have to remain stuck on the vehicles for hours. Particularly, the Dhaka-Tangail, Dhaka-Aricha and Dhaka-Chittagong highways have been facing onrush of vehicles loaded with home-bound people and cattle-laden trucks, officials said.On the other hand, the condition of several other national highways, including Dhaka-Sylhet, Dhaka-Moulvibazar, Dhaka-Habiganj, Dhaka-Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka-Feni and Dhaka-Noakhali, are also in a bad shape due to numerous potholes and cracks following intermittent rain in the last couple few days.The condition of some regional highways like Dhaka-Kishoreganj, Dhaka-Comilla, Dhaka- Mymensingh and Dhaka-Narsingdi is really miserable where gridlock becomes a common scene ahead of festival. Roads and Highways [RHD] officials apprehended that heavy rainfall ahead of the Eid-ul Azha might make the ‘ journey’ of lakhs of people a nightmare. However, the RHD is now undertaking temporary repair works to keep the roads and highways worthy of travel ahead of Eid. Chief Engineer of Roads and Highway M Feroz Iqbal admitted that the RHD was doing nominal maintenance work of the highways just to overcome the Eid-ul Azha challenge. “It’s a temporary maintenance work….. We have taken a decision to carry out massive repairing work after the end of the rainy season,” he said. When asked, whether the present maintenance work is sufficient to absorb the pressure of increasing vehicles on the highways, he replied, “We hope, it will work. Road repairing is a continuous process and we have also formed mobile teams to observe the condition of roads.”Meanwhile, thousands of people heading for home ahead of Eid-ul-Azha were stuck in a long tailback on the Dhaka-Chittagong Highway for almost 10 hours yesterday.Thousands of homebound passengers stuck in a huge traffic jam in Dhaka-Chittagong highway since early Wednesday morning in Comilla after a Chittagong-bound cargo lorry overturned at Porpai in Burichang upazila of Comilla in the middle of the road on Tuesday late night. The jam stretching about 32 kilometres from Comilla Cantonment to Iliotganj in Daudkandi upazila forced to slow down traffic movement. Police removed the lorry using a wrecker, but the condition was not eased till afternoon due to the heavy pressure of vehicles.Sub-Inspector of Amtali Highway Police Station Sirajul Islam said the sudden rush of home-bound people resulted in the gridlock. A good number of buses and trucks carrying people and cattle stood were waiting since yesterday morning on a long stretch of highway from Meghna Bridge till Comilla Cantonment.The situation was worse in Manikganj where around four hundred vehicles were seen waiting at Aricha and Paturia ferry terminals till yesterday evening.”At present, nine ferries are operating on the Aricha-Daulatdia channel to carry vehicles. Usually we carry around 4,000 vehicles each day. But the number has been increased due to Eid rush and we are struggling to accommodate,” Zillur Rahman, Assistant General Manager, Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation [BIWTC] said on Wednesday.Daulatdia ferry terminal Manager of BIWTC Shafiqul Islam said that the pressure of cattle-laden truck toward Dhaka was high at that moment. “Thousands of people are thronging the Shimulia ferry terminal, the gateway to the southern districts. At least 400 passenger vehicles were stranded on the Shimulia end in the afternoon.”On the other hand, BIWTC’s Mawa ferry terminal Manager Ashikuzzaman said 17 ferries were transporting vehicles to Kewrakandi across the Padma. Apart from the sufferings on roads, the people also have to bear the brunt of extra fare by the bus owners on different inter-district routes. “I warn of exemplary action against the people involved in raising extra bus fare taking the advantage of the on rush of passengers on the occasion of the Eid-ul-Azha festival. If any transport worker or any group is found in taking additional transport fare from the passengers on the Eid occasion, we will bring him to book,” Road, Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said on Wednesday.However, expressing satisfaction at the present situation of the highways, Transport Minister claimed that no report of traffic tailback from any corner of the country reached him and none complained against taking excessive fare from the passengers till date.The scenario was same at railway stations. The number of passengers at Kamalapur Railway Station was abnormal ahead of Eid holidays. The desperate holiday travellers were found riding atop trains at the Airport Railway Station. Kamalapur Railway Station Manager Sheetangshu Chakravarty said, “All the trains left Dhaka as per time-table except for the Rajshahi-bound Dhumketu Express, which was delayed by three hours due to huge rush.”The Sadarghat Launch Terminal was also overcrowded due to huge rush of passengers. Most of the launches were seen carrying over-loaded passengers defying the restriction of authorities.
