Dilapidated road in South Jatrabari keeps vehicles away

Taniya Akhtar, a class IV student of Jatrabari Girls High School, walks more than one kilometre every day to commute between her home and school.

However, she walks not because she wants to but because she is forced to as the half a kilometre stretch of road from Khanka Sharif to Boubazar in Jatrabari sees little to no rickshaws.   

"The condition of the road between my school and home is so bad that no rickshaws ply on it," she said.

On the slim chance that a rickshaw puller agrees to carry passengers on the Chandan Kotha Road he does so with a great risk of accidents.  

"An old woman was seriously injured last week when the rickshaw she was on overturned," said Muslim Mollah, a peon at the school. 

The condition of the road began deteriorating after Dhaka South City Corporation started work to set up a sewerage line underneath the road, he said.

Though DSCC completed the work about six months back, they did not bother about repairing the road, said Mohammad Babul, a staff of Bismillah Biriyani which is on the road.

Due to the road's terrible state, many people have to suffer to reach Chandan Kotha Community Centre.  

Mehedi Hasan, owner of Bismillah Biriyani, said they have to pay rickshaw pullers double, and sometimes even triple, the fare to bring goods to the restaurant.

He said just about a year back, before the sewerage line was set up, thousands of vehicles, including rickshaws, used the road daily but now the number of vehicles plying on the road is almost zero. 

According to the rules, the city corporation is supposed to repair the road after completing its work.

Sub-Assistant Engineer of DSCC zone-5 Fariduzzaman said they have finished about 60 percent of the repair work.

The repair work has been delayed due to a shortage of funds, he said and hoped that they would be able to finish the work by the end of March.