<i>All 3 bridges of a road in bad shape</i>
The bailey bridge across Kewabunia canal on Dashmina-Nehalganj road in Patuakhali district has remained in a awfully dilapidated condition while the bridge across Daspara canal on the same road lacks approach road, posing serious risk for the users. Photo: STAR
All the three bridges on Dashmina-Nehalgonj Road under Dashmina upazila are in awfully bad shape. Local people cross these bridges with acute risk. School going boys and girls also suffer greatly as they cannot use the bridges at school hours. Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) of Dashmina upazila constructed a bailey bridge over Kawabunia canal in 2002 at a cost of Tk 9 lakh. As the contractor did not build the approach road the locals cannot use it. Local union parishad filled some area with earth to link the bridge but still people cannot use it properly. Another bridge was built on the same canal in the same year. But after some days the approach road on one side of the bridge collapsed. As a result locals could not use it. The third bridge over Dashpara canal has also become useless as most areas of its floorboard have broken down making it risky for the users. "We are facing untold sufferings as we cannot use any of the three bridges on the road," Abdul Gaffar, a businessman of Nehalgonj bazar said. Over 1,000 students of five educational institutions situated in the adjacent areas are also suffering because of the bad shape of the bridges, Nurul Haque Howlader, UP chairman of Baharampur told this correspondent. He demanded immediate repair the bridges. Contacted, Md Hanif, upazila engineer of LGED, said that they sent separate estimates for repair of the bridges three years ago but those are yet to be approved. "We also sent several letters to the higher authorities in this regards but in vain," he added.
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