CWasa digs freshly paved road

Just when the KB Aman Ali road is getting renovated to mitigate the water-logging crisis in Chittagong city's West Bakalia, Chittagong Water and Sewerage Authority (Wasa) has started digging it up to install water pipelines.

It is a glaring example of lack of coordination between Chittagong Wasa and the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC), which not only brings misery to people but leads to waste of a lot of money, locals alleged.

The development work of the 1.4km road, from Chwakbazar kitchen market to Rahattar Pool, was started by CCC in December last year.

Almost two-thirds of the road, which links Chawkbazar with Chittagong-Cox's Bazar Highway, has been paved after being elevated to two feet high and the 10-inch gutters of both sides of the road have been expanded to 20 inches.

Amid the CCC work, Chittagong Wasa started digging up the newly paved road on June 6 making the situation worse for thousands of residents and commuters.

Visiting the area, this correspondent found that piles of brick chips and mud on many spots of the road have blocked half of it. Besides signboards and road-safety cones which are put in the middle of the road create traffic congestion resulting in public sufferings.

Shamsunnahar, a resident of the area, remained stuck in a traffic jam recently for around half an hour on her way to hospital to visit her ailing mother.

“I do not understand why the two organisations work at the same time and why the freshly paved road is being dug up to install pipelines,” she said.

“We suffer all the time even when the road is being paved and when pipelines are installed. We will suffer again when the road will be repaired,” she said. “Lack of coordination between the two vital organisations is the reason of our plight.”

Echoing Shamsunnahar, another resident Nirmalendu Paul said, “Where did they go in winter? Don't they have time except the rainy season for road development and pipeline installation?”

Sources of Chittagong Wasa said installation of pipelines started in 84km of roads of Chittagong city in the first week of June under the Chittagong Water Supply Improvement and Sanitation Project.

Contacted, Deputy Director of the project Ariful Islam said they issued a letter to CCC three to four months ago, seeking their permission to install the pipelines.

“We have got a demand note from CCC in May and paid the money accordingly to it before starting the installation,” he said.

“We are trying to coordinate the construction work with that of CCC but unfortunately we did not get permission for road digging before the paving work,” he said.

“We are discussing with CCC officials to avoid such incidents further in other areas.”

Ariful said they are just digging pits in the road and a total of 26 pits will be dug through which an under-earth drilling will be done for installation of pipelines. He also expected the installation work to be completed by June.

Denying the allegation of lack of coordination, Kazi Md Shafiul Alam, chief executive officer of CCC, said Chittagong Wasa informed them about the installation several months ago through a letter.

“It has also paid demurrage for installation of pipelines,” he said.

When asked why the road is being dug up after paving, the CCC official said they are discussing the matter with Wasa officials so that this kind of problem does not occur again. However, he denied the allegation of having no coordination between CCC and Chittagong Wasa regarding the road digging for pipeline installation.