Fire station lies unused due to narrow road
The building for the fire station in Galachipa upazila town was constructed 20 months ago. Necessary manpower and two fire trucks have also been allocated already.
But the townspeople are still deprived of the protection that the station could have rendered to them.
If the fire station was in service, destruction of nine shops in fire in Naluabagi area of the town on September 10 could have been prevented, said Nasir Uddin, chairman of Golkhali Union Parishad.
Mohammad Nizamuddin, assistant director of Fire Service and Civil Defence in Patuakhali, said the adjacent road that connects Galachipa town with the fire station is too narrow and unfit for the movement of fire trucks and other emergency vehicles.
Under the circumstances, they did not yet receive the station officially from Public Works Department (PWD) that constructed it. "We have informed the PWD and Galachipa municipality authorities of the matter."
Necessary workforce including firemen, vehicle drivers, station officers, a leader and two fire trucks have already been allocated for the station, classified under second class category, and two ambulances are also in the process of being allocated for it.
The road belongs to Galachipa municipality and as soon as the municipality makes necessary improvements to the road, they would start operations of the station, he also hoped.
According to data from PWD in Patuakhali, as part of a project undertaken for building 156 fire stations in some priority districts and upazilas in the country, the construction work on the station for Galachipa upazila town started in 2017 on 33 decimals of land alongside the road leading to Galachipa old launch dock.
The construction finished in February 2020 at a cost of Tk 3.29 crore and ever since, they wrote to the Fire Service and Civil Defence authorities several times for the formal handover of the station, said Executive Engineer Harun Ar Rashid of Patuakhali PWD.
As the fire department raised objection regarding the adjacent road, they already urged the Galachipa municipality to rebuild it, he added.
Contacted, Galachipa Mayor Ahsanul Haque Tuhin said the process of rebuilding the road was already underway and they sent a project proposal to the ministry concerned for building a 1.5-kilometre-long road with reinforced concrete casting (RCC), at a cost of Tk 4.75 crore.
They would start work as soon as the fund is allocated, he added.
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