Saga about road to Kuakata
Despite all, the road still remains virtually unusable
Potholes developed on muddy Kalapara-Kuakata Road following off-season rain a few days ago cause trouble to vehicles plying the road with tourists as well as local passengers aboard.Photo: STAR
A large portion of Kuakata-Kalapara road has remained in an awful condition as the contractors employed by the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) discontinued the repair work seven months ago, shortly after its start. Consequently, the road had remained virtually unusable, much to the sufferings of commuters, tourists and traders. The RHD renovated 62 km road from Lebukhali ferry ghat to Kalapara upazila town this year, department sources said. Authorities issued work order to construction firms Khan Enterprise and Rupsha Enterprise for renovation of 21.50 km long road from Kalapara to Kuakata,. The estimated cost, Tk 53.96 crore included Tk 40 crore for renovation of the road and the rest 13.96 crore for acquisition of land. But only Tk 19 crore has been given to local RHD till now. Rupsha Enterprise of Khulna got work order for renovation of 11 km road and Khan Enterprise got the order for rest 10.50 km. After Rupsha Enterprise started its works on March 17 in 2011 Patuakhali RHD officials of Kalapara Circle visited the site. Expressing dissatisfaction over low quality of the work, the officials verbally ordered the firm to stop carpeting on the road but the firm continued the work. Later another team led by Gulzar Hossain, superintending engineer of RHD, and Kamolendu Majumder, executive engineer for RHD in Patuakhali, visited the site and saw the same scene. The team also asked the firm to stop the work but the contractor continued the same with low quality materials. After completing carpeting works of 5 km road, the firm left the site in June as the rains began. Khan Enterprise also left the site after completing the 'base and sub base' work on 10.50 km of the road at the onset of the rains. Quality of the work of Khan Enterprise was also very bad and payment to the firm was suspended due to this, said RHD officials. "After joining here in October in 2011 I visited the sites more than once and found faults in the works. Rupsha Enterprise left the site in June and we issued at least 25 letters to the firm to complete the work as soon as possible. Rupsha Enterprise promised over letters to complete the work by ensuring quality," said Kamolendu Majumder, executive engineer for Patuakhali RHD. Md Lutfar Rahman, project director of Rupsha Enterprize, said, "We are facing fund crisis and so, we could not complete our work. We stopped the work in June. Quality could not be controlled properly as the rainy season started. We will restart work very soon and we hope that we will be able to complete the work in the scheduled time." Mahfuz Khan, proprietor of Khan Enterprise, also said that they had to stop the repair work due to the rains. A number of potholes appeared in the 21.50 km long road from Kalapara to Kuakata during the last several months. When this correspondent visited the road a few days ago, he saw over 30 vehicles including passenger buses, hilsa loaded trucks and microbuses stuck in holes at different spots on the road like Pakhimara, Ghutabacha, Hazipur and Omedpur as there was unexpected rain during the dry season. Tourists are suffering a lot due to dilapidated condition of the lone road leading to Kuakata sea beach. Kuakata was declared Exclusive Tourist Zone in 1996 but there has been hardly any infrastructural development to attract tourists. "The beauty of Kuakata reaches its peak during the rainy season but the area becomes almost inaccessible at the time," Golam Sarwar, owner of Sky Palace hotel in Kuakata. Commuters, especially people requiring urgent medical help, suffer a lot due to lack of usable roads. Hilsa and hatchery industries are also affected due to bad shape of the roads, said traders. "The bad shape of the road is causing huge losses to our industry. When a loaded truck gets stuck in a pothole, our merchandise gets rotten," Fazlu Gazi, president of Mohipur Hilsa Traders Association, said. “We are starting periodic maintenance in order to keep those road fit to use in the rainy season under Periodic Maintenance Programme,” the executive engineer of Patuakhai RHD said.
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