The hellish road that turns travelling into nightmare

The road that runs beside Kalsindur, a village that is home to many of the country's famed woman football players, has been in a deplorable state for years.

Especially during monsoon, about eight kilometres of the 11-kilometre road, between Ronsinghpur and Dhobaura upazila town in Mymensingh's Dhobaura upazila, turns into a nightmare for at least five thousand people who use it every day, said locals.

The road is the only means of communications for thousands of residents in Dhobaura upazila's Gamaritola and Dakkhin Maizpara unions as well as Kullagara and Gaonkandia unions in neighbouring Netrakona's Durgapur upazila, they added.

Tourists from different part of the country also use this road to visit the scenic hilly regions of Dhobaura and Durgapur upazilas, said Tahura Khatun, who plays in forward position in the women's national football team. 

Although repaired four years ago, the road fell into despair within a couple of years as it was not fit for constant movement of hundreds of heavy vehicles transporting sand.    

The 180-kilometre trip back home from Dhaka becomes unbearable while passing through this part of the road, said the frustrated footballer.

Another football player, Tania Akter, from Gamaritola village, is a U-14 left-back and a ninth grade student at Bangladesh Krira Shikkha Protishthan.

Echoing similar views, she said it seems that no one has any responsibility to relieve people of the sufferings.   

Incidents of vehicles breaking down or getting into accidents on the battered road are all too common for locals.

Mahfuzur Rahman, an undergraduate student from Ranipur village, said on way back home from Kalsindur Bazar, his brand new cell phone got damaged after it slipped out into the mud he lost control of his motorbike on the road. 

Locals in need of urgent medical care risk their lives while using this dilapidated road to reach hospitals in upazila or district towns, said Minoti Rani Shil, headteacher of Kalsindur Government Primary School.

Local farmers, who rely on this road for transporting their produce to markets, are also suffering as they cannot ensure timely supply of the produce while those are fresh, she also said. 

Gamaritola Union Parishad Chairman Anwar Hossain Khan said repair work of a 6-kilometre section of the vital road was approved in 2017-2018 fiscal year, but the work never started.

Contacted, Shahinur Ferdous, engineer of Local Government Engineering Department in Dhobaura upazila, said work order for repair work of a 3-kilometre-long section of the road, between Krishnapur and Kalsindur, has recently been issued and the work is supposed begin in a month.