Road-digging causes suffering to Cox's Bazar residents

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OUR CORRESPONDENT | Published: April 09, 2022 20:58:41

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COX'S BAZAR, Apr 09: Cox's Bazar residents have been facing untold sufferings every day for road digging in different areas of the beach town.
This leads to huge traffic congestions, accidents as well as business losses.
The construction work of the city's main road development, which includes widening of the road and setting up a drainage system network, began in 2020. It was supposed to be completed by December 2022.
The project is being implemented by the supervision of the Cox's Bazar Development Authority (CoxDA).
But the awfully slow pace in its implementation is taking a heavy toll on the people of the area, said locals.
In the past two years, the construction firm has not yet been able to complete the construction of the drain, they added.
Manzoor Sikder, the owner of the Sikder Complex, said, "The road beside my building was dug around two months ago. I don't know when the trench will be filled."
"The situation is the same everywhere in the city," he added.
Shafiqul Islam, an auto-rickshaw driver, said, "The development work is ruining our business. Now, you have to be stuck in traffic congestion for hours after hours."
"The way the work is going on now, it seems like it will take another year to complete the drain work only," he added.
Arifa Akhtar, the attendant of a hospitalised patient, said, "The distance to the hospital from my house is 500 yards. Normally, it takes around 15 minutes to reach there. But today, it took us about an hour and a half to reach the hospital."
"I wonder what would happen if there was a critical patient with me," she added.
The locals alleged that the situation has deteriorated due to the slow pace of the work with a handful of workers.
"Road digging is going on in new places before the excavated parts are repaired," one of them said.
The locals also said there is a lack of coordination between the municipality authorities and the CoxDA.
According to them, the municipality has also started road digging on a number of connecting roads of the city at a time when the work on the main road is going on, increasing Cox's Bazar city dwellers' miseries further.
However, the officials of CoxDA, said the contractor has been repeatedly asked to complete the work on time.
The project under the Ministry of Housing and Public Works is supposed to widen and develop the 4.6-kilometre road at the cost of estimated Tk 1.82 billion (182.62 crore).
CoxDA member (engineering) and director of the main road widening project Lt. Colonel Md. Khizir Khan said, "According to the work order, there is time to complete the work, but seeing the suffering of the people, we repeatedly asked the contractor to complete the work quickly."
The construction firm's (National Development Engineers Limited) Project Co-Ordinator Engineer, Arifur Rahman, admitted the slow pace of the work, saying, "We cannot work freely here."
"The work is slowing down due to various reasons. One of them is lack of labourers. Sometimes, workers fall sick in various diseases including diarrhoea due to continuous work," he added.
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