Human chain demanding resumption of road repair

Hundreds of people on Wednesday formed a human chain demanding restart of renovation work of 86-km long road from Lebukhali to Amragachhia through Dumki, Baufal, Dashmina and Galachipa upazilas.
People from all walks of life took part in the human chain that began at 10:00am and continued for two hours in Baufal upazila headquarters.
The repair work of the roads stopped six months ago allegedly due to lack of fund.
The authorities in June, 2011 allocated only Tk 2 crore against the estimated cost of Tk 99.20 crore for the road renovation project of Roads and Highways Department (RHD) in Patuakhali. But the department took back Tk one crore of the allocated fund in the name of an emergency work in the first week of October, RHD sources said.
Later, all the four construction firms engaged in the road renovation stopped their work following the fund withdrawal, shattering the dream of over 12 lakh people of the four upazilas, the protesters said.
During the programme, the agitated people put up barricade on the road, stopping movement of all types of vehicles.
The speakers threatened to go for a tougher programme if the demand was not met within today.
They also besiged Kamalendu Majumder, executive engineer of RHD in the district on the road for two hours while he was crossing the upazila town. He was freed after giving assurance of resuming the work by a week.
UP chairman Mojibur Rahman, Golam Kibria Pannu, president of Baufal town AL unit, Ibrahim Khalil, organising secretary of upazila unit Jubo League and Shahidur Rahman Talukder, secretary of upazila unit BNP, addressed at the programme.