Dilapidated foot rail
Visitors have been suffering a lot due to the dilapidated condition of the lone foot rail in Horinghata reserve forest area in Barguna and lack of other facilities.
The tourist spot has been witnessing a drastic fall in number of visitors in the last two years.
The reserve mangrove forest is situated in Pathorghata upazila, about 40-kilometre south of Barguna town, and close to the shore.
The forest was named after Bengali word Harin, which means deer, as a good number of deer are found there.
Considering tourists' interest, the forest department in association with Pathorghata upazila administration built a 950-metre foot trail, a seven-storey watchtower, eight benches, a bridge and a pond inside the forest area.
Road communication from the upazila headquarters to the forest is in a bad shape and there is no rest house or any picnic shed.
One can visit the forest by paying Tk 11.50 (including 15 percent vat), Beat Officer of the forest Polash Chakraborty said.
Pathorghata upazila administration constructed the 950-metre foot rail in 2014-15 fiscal year and formally opened it to tourists in April 2016 so that they can enjoy its scenic beauty walking along the foot rail into the deep forest.
The foot trail was made with wooden slippers placed on a concrete frame and it became unfit to use after the wooden slippers were either rotten or damaged.
In the first eight months of its opening the total number of visitors to the forest was about 1.58 lakh.
The number of visitors declined in the following years.
It was 1.28 lakh in 2017, while it was only over 68 thousand this year, Pathorghata Range Officer Monir Hossain said.
Sanctuary for deer and crocodile will be set up in the forest to attract more tourists, he said.
Al-Amin, one of the visitors from Pirojpur's Mathbaria upazila, said he came to visit the reserve forest along with his family members but could not walk freely on the foot rail as most its slippers were missing.
Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) Mohammad Aminul Islam said a special project of Tk 21.20 crore is under process to develop four reserve forests in the country.
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