Hajong youths repair broken bridge at own initiative
A group of ethnic Hajong youths voluntarily repaired the broken portion of a bridge in a remote area of Lengura union under Netrakona's Kalmakanda upazila on Monday.
The 46-foot-long bridge on Gopalbari canal, some half-kilometre away from the Indian border, was constructed under World Vision Bangladesh's Area Development Programme in Kalmakanda in 2005, said locals.
The small but important bridge, used by people of 10 villages of Lengura and Kharnoi unions to reach different bazaars and Kalmakanda and Durgapur upazila towns, developed breach in the middle portion a year ago, said Sajal Hajong, a member of local Lengura union parishad (UP).
Usually auto-rickshaws and bicycles plied the road for different destinations but after the breach in the bridge, people could use it only to walk across, said Nitya Kumar Hajong, a student at a private university in Dhaka.
"We are now at our village home as the educational institutions are closed due to Covid-19 pandemic. We repaired the bridge with our labour and contribution as further damage to the bridge would make it totally unusable," said Nayeem Hajong, an honours final year student at Dhaka College.
Shuvra Hajong, who volunteered to repair the road, said more than 50 percent people of the backward area belong to indigenous Hajong and Garo communities.
"As the broken bridge was not repaired in a year, we the youths, mostly students, joined hands to do it with the initiative of UP member Sajal Hajong," said Shuvra, a first-year student at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology.
Md Saidur Rahman Bhuiyan, chairman of Lengura UP, said he provided assistance to the youths to repair the bridge.
Comments