From Bandarban’s Kuhalong Headman Para, Ongme Pru Marma crossing the Sangu River twice by boats came to Kuhalong Union Parishad recently to collect the birth certificate of his child.
If Ongme Pru did not want to cross the river, he would have had to take a longer 15-kilometre route with thrice as much fare.
People of the area are suffering heavily for the last one year due to the dilapidated condition of the 4-kilometre road from Kyamlong Para to Kuhalong Headman Para. This road, which is being reconstructed by Local Government Engineering Department (LGED), is regularly used by about 2,000 people.
Marketing of agricultural products has now become costly. Having to pay double or triple car rental than before, the movement of people in four villages has been greatly hampered. It is most difficult to take sick patients to the hospital. Aung Sahla Marma, a UP member of Kuhalang Union's ward 8, said local people were delighted when the carpeting work of the road started last year. They hoped to move around and transport agricultural products with ease by the carpeted road. However, the contractor only finished 1 kilometer of the road in one year.
The distance from the Union Parishad office to Kuhalong Headman Para is only four kilometers, but one has to travel fifteen kilometers to get to the Union Parishad by tripling the car fare now. No one knows when the work on this four kilometer road will be completed. The present condition of the road does not even allow people movement let alone vehicles. Visiting the spot, it was seen that the sand and gravel of the sloping road was washed away by the flow of rain water and the gigantic potholes on the road are now filled with waters making the road look like a ditch. Aung Sahla Marma added that it has become very difficult to take agricultural products to the market, people come and go in the village for social and religious ceremonies and even if a person is sick, it is very difficult to take him to the hospital.
Basi Mong Marma, acting chairman of the Kuhalong Union, said the road from Kyamlong to Kuhalong Headman Para was frequently used by about 2,000 people from four villages for transporting agricultural products and coming to the union council. He requested the concerned authorities to complete the construction work of the road as soon as possible.
Although the contractor Md Jahed has said that he will try to complete the road work from Kyamlong to Kuhalong Headman Para by next December, brick kiln workers Md Qayyum and Md Ehsanul Karim said that the road work is not likely to start till new bricks come out of the kiln, which will come out in January-February next year.
Md Jahangir Alam, Senior Assistant Engineer, Bandarban Local Government Engineering Department, said that Mr UT Mong Construction is implementing the work of 10 km from Kyamlong to Chemi Dolupara in two packages of FY 2019-2020 at an estimated cost of Tk 150 million.
Work is currently closed due to the rainy season. The contractor has been urged to start work as soon as the monsoon season ends. The contractor said it would complete the road construction in mid-May 2022 and hand it over to the LGED.
