People suffer for delay in road work

Thousands of commuters are facing untold sufferings for months due to delay in construction of 8.5-kilometre-long Thakurgaon-Farabari road, located on the northern part of the district headquarters.

Local people find it hard to live in the roadside houses and continue their businesses due to thick dust of brick-chips in the air as the road construction work remained suspended for over six months now.

According to Thakurgaon Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), construction farm DE-R-B-JV got the Tk 10.15 crore work order in July, 2020, to complete the 8.5-kilometre road, under Rural Connectivity Improvement Project (RCIP).

Although, the work was scheduled to be completed by January this year, after doing some development works the contractor suspended the work six months ago siting bitumen crisis.

During a recent visit, this correspondent saw the entire area's air is thick with dust due to dumping of brick-chips, now turned dust.

Makbular Rahman, lecturer at Abdur Rashid Degree College, said due to delay in the construction work the air of the area is got thick with dust and causing breathing problems.

Easy-bike driver Khayrat Ali said his daily income has dropped as passengers try to avoid the dusty road due to health risk.

Md Ibrahim, who runs a roadside grocery shop, said the contractor concern was supposed to spray water two times a day to minimise the dust, but he is not following it.

Al-Sabbir, supervisor of the construction farm, said the work is currently suspended due to crisis of bitumen.   Thakurgaon LGED Executive Engineer Shaharul Alam said the contractor has been asked to spray water regularly.