Thousands suffer for want of permanent bridge
On Saturday morning, grocery shop-owner Moshiur Rahman, 45, was taking his daughter second grader Imu and her classmate Shahnaz to the Barogharia Government Primary School on his motor bike along the Darwani-Khansama road in Nilphamari Sadar upazila.
While crossing a narrow, makeshift bamboo bridge over Chandra Kura Canal at Joychandi village under Sonarai union of the Sadar upazila, he lost control and the three riders as well as the vehicle fell into the water.
Elderly Nolini Roy, who was cutting paddy in a nearby field, came to the rescue. The victims with minor injuries and the motor bike were pulled out of the water.
The water-level in the canal remains low in winter, about five to six feet under the bridge. Therefore, the victims were lucky enough not to get drowned, said Nalini, whose house is near the bridge.
He claimed that such accidents occur almost every day when people of surrounding villages use the bamboo bridge to cross the canal.
According to the Chairman of Sonarai Union Parishad Golam Mostafa, more than 10,000 people of 11 villages use the bamboo bridge, the only one in the union that connects Khansama upazila with the Sadar upazila.
Work order to construct a 33-feet long and 18-feet wide concrete bridge over Chandra Kura Canal along with 1800-meter approach road was awarded to Messers Shah Anwar Construction last year in July, 2018 at a cost of Tk 1.53 crores, informed Saiful Islam, engineer of Nilphamari Sadar Upazila Local Government and Engineering Department (LGED).
He said, the contractor was supposed to complete the work by July this year, but till date only 20 percent of the work has been completed.
“We are concerned because the scheduled time for completion of the project expired five months ago,” he said.
Executive Engineer Belal Hossain of district LGED informed that they issued two notices to the contractor at the end of July and September warning work order cancellation, and forfeit of the security money deposited by the contractor if the work is not completed within a couple of months.
Contractor Shah Anwar told The Daily Star that they stopped the work a year ago.
“It was not possible to continue the work as the canal is very deep and the water level was high. Once the water-level goes down we will restart construction,” he said.
Villager Potish Chandra Roy, 42, alleged that the contractor shifted his men and equipment to a bigger work site, a year ago, causing the locals extreme sufferings.
When this correspondent visited the bridge on Saturday, he found rusted iron rods sticking out of the water on one side of the bridge from an incomplete cut off wall, meant to prevent waterflow.
Shah Ahsan Habib Babu, president of a local voluntary organisation alleged that a worker of Uttara Export Processing Zone (EPZ) near Shongalshi, Nilphamari fell in the canal with his motor bike a month ago and became seriously injured as the some of the iron rod pierced through his belly.
Students of five educational institutions situated on both sides of the canal and workers of Uttara EPZ east of the Chandra Kura use the risky bridge every day, he claimed.
Md Nurunnabi, 35, of nearby Darwani village informed that before the government approved the construction of a concrete bridge, locals would voluntarily build a makeshift bamboo bridge every year to cross the canal. But the bamboo structure is so narrow that even rickshaws can’t ply over it.
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