Mirza Shakil

Only three months ago, Thanchi Mri would spend her days giving women beauty treatments in air-conditioned rooms of a parlour in Dhaka.

Boro farmers in Tangail are in a dire situation as they are running against time to save the ripe paddy on fields that remain submerged following frequent rain and storm over the past week.

Until the coronavirus crisis hit the country, banana grower Shamsul Alam was confident about making a profit of Tk 20 lakh to Tk 70 lakh from his banana plantation in Tangail’s Madhupur upazila.

Over 1 lakh handloom and power loom workers, the ones that weave the famous Tangail saris, are in dire need of help after they went out of work since their factories were shuttered nearly a month ago amid the outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus.

The three out of the five Bailey bridges, constructed in the 90s, on Kalihati-Borochowna road in Kalihati upazila are now in a ramshackle state.

Several thousand transport workers and their families in Tangail have been passing days in hardship since bus services were suspended on March 26.

Md Rafiq Miah had like everyone else suspended operations at his home-based garments production workstation in Tangail’s Mirzapur following recent government directives on containing the novel coronavirus.

Lying unused for long, the buildings and lands of two former sub-jails at Delduar and Sakhipur upazilas in Tangail are decaying while a plan to set up child development centres by the Department of Social Service is yet to be implemented.

An unapproved kitchen market, occupying two plots of BSCIC (Bangladesh Small and Cottage Industries Corporation) industrial area in Tangail, remains an issue of conflict between the BSCIC authorities and locals and traders of the market.

The much used Inderhat-Jilbari road in Nesarabad upazila is in an awful condition for over a decade, causing untold suffering to the commuters.

Unregistered 10-wheeled tipper trucks engaged by illegal sand traders have been causing havoc in Bhuapur upazila for a long time due to indifference of the authorities concerned.

Massive waste dumping beside busy roads continues for long, exposing the abysmal condition of waste management system in the century-old Tangail municipality.

Eel export from Sakhipur has come to a halt due to the outbreak of coronavirus in China, which consumes around 90 per cent of the fish grown in the upazila in Tangail.

Mohammad Soinuddin Miah, a poor farmer from Chakgagadhar village in Tangail’s Nagarpur upazila who almost single-handedly constructed an earthen road to ease the sufferings of his fellow villagers, now hopes to see it concreted over by the authorities concerned.

Aminur Rahman of Gachhpara Kamrangaon village in Tangail’s Delduar upazila has found a more profitable way of duck rearing, which requires him to shift the birds to a different place twice or thrice a year, depending on availability of water in waterbodies.

Honey yields from mustard in Tangail were dealt a blow this year due to unfavourable weather conditions, say cultivators.

A physician couple from the US has become the successors to late Dr Edric Sargission Baker, the New Zealander who established the Kailakuri Health Care Center in Madhupur upazila in 1996.

While the widening work of the national highway between Elenga and Jamalpur continues at a snail’s pace, no one seems to care about the health hazards as well as rampant accidents people are being subjected to.

Health of Tangail townspeople is under threat due to absence of slaughterhouse and screening of animals at kitchen markets of the town.

All the 12 Bailey bridges in Tangail portion of Tangail-Aricha road are now in dilapidated conditions, posing risk for a large number of vehicles including passenger buses, goods-laden trucks and light vehicles.