22km bumpy journey in Nilphamari
No road repair despite human chain, bus strike
Run-down Nilphamari-Domar road appears more like a rugged landscape, making vehicular movement a hard job. The photo was taken from Polashbari point of the road last week. Photo: STAR
The 22-kilometre-long road connecting Nilphamari town and Domar upazila headquarters in the district has become virtually unfit for vehicular moment due to lack of repair for long. Loaded trucks and passenger buses now move very slowly to avert accidents on the road. A good number of them have already stopped operation there. Visiting the area on Feb 20, this correspondent saw a number of ditches and holes on the road. "I usually go to Nilphamari from Domar most of the weekdays. For this I start from my house at 7:00am but cannot reach my destination in time as journey on the potholed road takes much longer than usual time," said Mahabbat Hossain, a resident of Domar. "Most of the bus owners do not like to operate their buses on this route as the vehicles are damaged and accidents occur due to bad shape of the road. We will have to stop plying of buses here if the road is not repaired immediately,” said Shahjahan Choudhury, president of district bus owners association. Following tender for development work of 82-km road stretching over Dinajpur, Nilphamari and Panchagarh districts under the government's 'Road Network Improvement and Maintenance project-2 (RNIMP-2), work order was given to construction firm 'Abdul Monem Limited' on June 25 in 2008, Roads and Highways Department (RHD) sources said. But the firm could not start the work on 22 km Nilphamari-Domar road in time due to various complexities. Asian Development Bank that is financing the project earlier asked for completion of the work within June 30 last year but the time limit was extended to June 30 this year. When contacted, Sharifuzzaman, project manager of Abdul Monem Ltd, said, “Under RNIMP-2 project, we had finished most of the road development work in Dinajpur and Panchagarh. But we could not start the work for 22 km NilphamariDomar road as the authority concerned did not hand over the land for road expansion in time." "Now the land has been given and we are ready to start work. But we cannot do it due to time constraint. We requested the authority to extend the time limit till June 30 in 2013 but the request is yet to be granted," he said. Sajedur Rahman, sub divisional engineer of RNIMP-2 project, said due to complexities in land requisition, it was not possible to hand over land to the construction firm in time. Demanding immediate start of road construction work, Nilphamari Chamber of Commerce and Industry supported by different professional groups organised a 22-kilometre-long human chain along Nilphamari-Domar road on January 25. Bus owners association also announced suspension of bus operation on the road from January 29 when authorities persuaded them to withdraw the strike by giving assurance to start the repair work immediately. But there is no sign of starting the work yet.
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