Zia Sarani left to die

Gobindapur Bazar Road near Shanir Akhra has been in this horrible state for the last five years. Hardly any vehicle uses the road and people can only use one edge of the road to walk. Photo: Anisur Rahman

The once clean Ziaur Rahman Sarani in Matuail is now just a kilometre stretch of mud and filth, unusable for any sort of vehicles.

Built in 2005 to link Demra and Jatrabari Chittagong Road, the street has hardly ever been maintained or repaired.

The Daily Star correspondent waited an hour beside the road and failed to see a single vehicle pass by.

Locals have thrown brick chunks at places so that they could at least cross the road on foot.

Middle-aged Mizanur Rahman had to carry on his back his 70-year-old father-in-law, Ibrahim Bhuiyan, for the better part of the way to Ibne Sina Diagnostic Centre in Jatrabari. 

"I have tried to get a rickshaw but none showed any interest in going down the road because of its poor condition," said Mizanur.

It took him almost half an hour to carry his father-in-law over the one kilometre stretch before finally getting a rickshaw at Shanir Akhra. Like Mizanur, around 20,000 residents of the area have to deal with the appalling road on a regular basis to get to the two main roads.

Nazrul Islam said he bought a house in the area but was trying to sell it off due to the dilapidated condition of the road, but he couldn't get a buyer.

He is a Bangladeshi living in the USA who has been in Dhaka for around two months now.

Nobody dares to use a car on the road, he said, adding that he had used his car but had to spend Tk 40,000 in the last one and half months on repairs.

Children going to school suffer the most. They have to walk and sometimes wade into knee-deep water after a downpour.

"I showed up for my English first paper exam on August 11 in dirty and wet uniform as I had fallen while going through the water," said Rabeya Akhtar, a class-X student of Sheikhdi Abdullah Mollah High School at Matuail.

Her classmate Afroza Akhtar said, "My uniform was ruined just three days ago when the entire road went under knee-deep-water."

"We want nothing from our public representatives and the government, we just want them to do something about this," said Abdur Rob, a trader of the area.

Union Parishad chairman of Daniya, Md Jumman Miyah, said a contract worth Tk 5 crore had already been awarded for repairs of the road and the contractor has started work.

"We are expecting the work to finish before the coming Eid," he said.

Locals said there was no sign of work beginning and the UP chairman's claim was a lie.