Lone bamboo bridge only means

People of about 100 villages in Dhobaura upazila had been suffering for long as they have to cross a bamboo bridge on Netai river due to absence of a concrete bridge there.

In the dry season, people use the bamboo bridge to cross the river while they had to cross the river by boats during the rainy season, villagers said.

The 400-feet bamboo bridge is the only means of communication for people of about 100 villages under Ghoshgaon, Dakkhin Miazpara, Dhobaura, Kalsindur and Munshirhat unions and its adjoining areas for nearly 70 years, they said.

The villages include Kalikabari, Ramsinghpur, Kalsindur, Munshirhat, Koroigara, Kashipur, Baghpara, Ghilagara, Munshipara, Ranipur, Nayapara and Bhalukapara.

“People have been using the bamboo bridge since the Pakistan regime,” Dakkhin Miazpara Union Parishad (UP) Chairman Fazlul Haque said, adding that earlier people had to pay toll for using the bamboo bridge after it was leased to some locals by the UP concerned.

Nowadays, villagers do not have to pay any toll and he had been managing the construction cost of the bridge, boats and daily wage of two boatmen from the UP fund for the last five years, he said.

Dulal Mia, president of the union unit Awami League, said nearly 20,000 people of several unions under Dhobaura and its adjoining upazilas use the bridge daily to reach their destinations.

Due to the difficult communication, it is often difficult to take critical or elderly patients to Dhobaura Health Complex or Mymensingh Medical College Hospital, he said.

“There are some 20 schools on both sides of the river,” Headmaster of Ghoshgoan High School Fayez Uddin Ahmed said, adding that about 1,500 school and college going students use the bridge daily.

A number of students of the school said if a concrete bridge is built on the river it will reduce both time and distance to reach Netrakona.

Farmer Manik Mia of Ramsinghpur village said although different types of agricultural produces are grown in the area, they are deprived of fair prices due to lack of proper communication.

Sometimes they even have to incur loss due to high carrying cost of their produces, said Abdul Kader, another farmer of the village.

Executive Engineer Mosharraf Hossain of Mymensingh Local Government and Engineering Department said a team has been formed for feasibility study for a concrete bridge there.