CHATTOGRAM, Jan 07: Construction of the approach road in the eastern section of Karnaphuli tunnel has remained suspended for the last three days following protests by local people demanding immediate payment of compensation money for their lands acquired for the road.
The work suspension may continue this week until local MP and Minister Saifuzzaman Chowdhury Zaved returns to Chattagram from Dhaka to settle the issue.
Mr Zaved, a local elected parliamentarian from Anwara who took oath of office as minister for land on Monday in Dhaka, is expected to return by Friday.
Villagers whose lands have been acquired for the approach road of the tunnel in Anwara on the west bank of the river alleged that they are yet to receive the compensation money for their land although the Chinese construction firm has already started work on the site.
Villagers from Boirag, Kantirhat and Bandar Hindupara also formed a human chain in front of the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Chattogram on Sunday and submitted a memorandum to the DC to press for their demand.
In the memorandum, the aggrieved villagers said road development work was going on without assessment of the structures on their lands.
Assessment of the lands is done partially but assessment of structures on some lands has not yet been completed. So, they have not been paid compensation money for their ancestral lands.
They also alleged that there have been irregularities in payment of the compensation money, as some are getting the price three times of the mouza rate as per government rules while some others are likely to be deprived of the rate.
Nidhir Singh, an aggrieved villager from Boirag, alleged that the employees and officials in the Land Acquisition section of the DC office in Chattogram and some outsiders have been trying to deprive them of their due payment.
Gopal Bhoumik said they have been issued eviction notice but they are yet to receive the price of their land.
Rafiq Ahmed Khan, another aggrieved villager, said they face harassments in the local office while trying to get their payment.
Sources said the construction of about 10 km approach roads of four lanes at the city end at Patenga Naval Academy point and the east bank of the Karnaphuli River in Anwara started recently.
For approach roads on both ends of the tunnel, the authority has decided to acquire 384 acres of land in two villages of Boirag union.
Of the land, 232 acres of land have been handed to the Chinese construction firm while the remaining lands are yet to be acquired.
China Communication and Construction Company Ltd is implementing about Tk 100 billion Karnaphuli Tunnel project, a high profile fast-track project of the Bangladesh Bridges Authority of the government.
The tunnel, first of its kind in the country, is expected to be completed by 2022.
An official of the Karnaphuli Tunnel Project said teh main work of the tunnel -- the machine boring -- is yet to start as the work of assembling tunnel machinery has not yet been completed.
It will take at least one more month to complete the assembling work, he said.
Tauhidul Haque Chowdhury, Upazila Chairman of Anwara, told the FE that Minister Zaved and he are now staying in Dhaka and will return home on Thursday.
They will settle the problem by Thursday or Friday, he added.
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