Uttara roads in bad shape

Poor construction and supervision by the administration concerned made this road in Uttara [Rd# 1, Sec-10] improper for both pedestrians and vehicles. The covered van is desperately avoiding the ditches for safety.Photo: STAR

Shopkeeper Roni was returning to his shop a few days back by a rickshaw-van after buying three sacks of rice from Tongi. Suddenly the rice sacks fell into a ditch of muddy water as the rickshaw-van collapsed on a road under Sector-10 of Uttara Model Town.
"I have suffered a loss of Tk 10,000 as I could not recover the rice sacks from muddy water," said Roni as his face looked pale.
This is not a single story. Breakdowns of rickshaw, rickshaw-van and other vehicles are regular phenomena on the roads under sector-10 of the model town. Condition of the roads is so bad that vehicles have to bump all along.
Roni has to use road-4 of sector-10 to go to his shop at Rana Bhola Union Parishad Road under Harirampur Union. Besides, the condition of the roads under Harirampur Union is also bad and vehicles cannot run smoothly on the roads.
There are 2-3 feet deep ditches at places on road-1 and road-1A under sector-10. The residents of the area dread to run their vehicles on the dilapidated roads.
"We do not use these roads as we are aware of it. But people who do not know about the risky condition of the roads use it and their cars are often trapped in ditches," said Belal Hossain, a resident of the area.
Many private cars often fall into ditches and it takes time to pull the vehicles from ditches, he said.
Belal said the roads were damaged severely in the last two years due to running of heavy trucks.
Like the Rana Bhola road, road-1 and road-1A of sector-10, most of the roads including 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 under Uttara sector-10 are in a very bad condition.
Besides, the condition of many lanes under different sectors including 11, 12, 13, and 14 is also bad, as the authority concerned did not take proper step to keep the road okay.
General Secretary of Sector-10 Kalyan Samity Abdul Ali said many times they have complained to the Dhaka City Corporation about the roads but the corporation paid no heed to their requests.
He said all the 20 roads of the sector-10 except road-4 are heavily damaged.
Ali said there is a way to go to Ashulia road through Dhour and Kamarpara via Rana Bhola village. Drivers of the covered vans and trucks use the roads of sector-10, causing damage to it.
Executive Engineer of zone-10 of DCC Mesbaul Karim said there is a project worth Tk 19.19 crore to repair the roads of Uttara sector-10, 11, 12, 13 and 14 and to construct drain. The project is now waiting for planning commission's approval.
He said they could start the work after getting approval from the planning commission. "We are expecting to start the work next dry season and we will do the work of sector-10 on priority basis," he said.
Talking to The Daily Star, Harirampur UP member Md Mostafa Jamal said, "I sent an application to Tejgaon circle office (development) under DC office for repairing the road a few months back. But I haven't got any response yet."