Tk 1.45 billion infrastructure lies unused in Gaibandha, Jamalpur

GAIBANDHA, Mar 10: The visually appealing infrastructure of ferry terminals at Gaibandha and Jamalpur's Balashighat-Bahadurabad river route have been lying without any use although they were built with about Tk1.45 billion in 2022.
The terminals were constructed as part of a government mega project to start ferry services on the 26-kilometre route in the Brahmaputra-Jamuna River. The project aimed to ease communication between Dhaka and eight districts of Rangpur.
In 2017, the cost of the project was estimated at about Tk 1.24 billion, which was later increased to Tk 1.45 billion in two phases. After the completion of works at the two terminals, the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) declared the route unfit for ferry traffic due to various problems, including navigability.
BIWTA made a failed attempt to start launch services on a trial basis on the route on April 9 in 2022. Afterwards, several attempts were made to run ferries in the excavated waterway, which also failed.
Later, the BIWTA formed a committee to find out the problems of the waterway and it said in its final report that the route had become unfit for ferry traffic due to various reasons, including lack of quality of physical work, supervision of work, project acceptance without a navigability study, and lack of coordination in project implementation.
In addition, the report recommended that the ferry piers at both ends of Balashighat and Bahadurabad be shifted to other places as they were constructed without any knowledge on the river's morphology. The committee also recommended using the infrastructure built under the project for other purposes.
On a visit to the Balashighat terminal in Gaibandha's Fulchhari Upazila, toll booths, bus terminals, fire service, police barracks, rest houses, offices, mosques, food hotels, and ansar barracks were seen. The infrastructure was almost deserted with only a few Ansar members deployed to guard them.

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