Roumari staggers on bamboo bridges

Thousands of residents in Kurigram's Roumari upazila have been building and maintaining around fifty bamboo bridges for years.

But their repeated pleas for safer and permanent bridges over rivers and canals crisscrossing the upazila -- on the floodplain of the Brahmaputra river -- fell on deaf ears.

When the nation has been enjoying benefits of the country's steady economic progress in recent years, the agricultural community in the upazila are facing difficulties in swift transport of their goods and produce on the risky bamboo bridges, said locals.

Besides, the rickety bridges pose risk to young children, the elderly and patients who are unable to cross the bridges on foot, they also said.

Jamal Uddin, an elderly resident of Harindhara village in the upazila, said public representatives had only made promises, but the inhabitants of the village had to bear the construction and repair expenses of the bamboo bridge on Harindhara canal in the village over the last 15 years.

The bamboo bridge, made long time ago by Dharmapur village residents, need costly repairs every year and it gets hazardous during the wet season, but their repeated calls to the authorities for a concrete bridge so far produced no result, said village elder Nabir Hossain.

Residents of Char Gaytapara had been pleading for a concrete bridge to replace the bamboo bridge they made 17 years ago, said villager Mansur Uddin.  

There are 14 bamboo bridges in Dantbhanga union alone, but the union parishad (UP) has no fund for such work, said UP Chairman Shamsul Haque.

On multiple occasions, he requested the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) to replace those with concrete ones, but to no avail, the chairman added.

Contacted, Sub-assistant Engineer Mezbah-ul-Alam of LGED in Roumari said bridges between the length of 20 and 600 metres are built by the LGED while the smaller ones are done under the Ministry of Disaster Management and Relief.

He also said that the LGED, under its plan to construct 31 concrete bridges in the upazila, has already floated tender for six.

Azizur Rahman, implementation officer for Roumari, said site inspection for smaller bridges had been conducted and they now await fund allocation from the higher authorities.

All the bamboo bridges in Roumari will be replaced with concrete bridges soon, assured Roumari Upazila Parishad Chairman Sheikh Abdullah.