Road communication on the 46km road between Matiranga and Tanakkapara under Matiranga upazila of the district is likely to be disrupted during the rainy season due to the potholes that have emerged along the road.
Locals have expressed their concerns over the dilapidated road saying that the commuters, especially students, are suffering the most while using the route to reach various destinations. They fear the damaged road might lead to a major accident and lives may be lost.
Roads and Highways Department (RHD) officials said the 46km route from Matiranga to the Tanakkapara border area is the only route for commuting for the people of at least 125 villages. Two to three thousand commuters use the road every day to travel to other upazilas and districts of the country.
The condition of the road has deteriorated in the last five years due to the movement of heavy traffic. Lack of repairs and hill slides also contributed to the current condition.
Chiton Das, a high school teacher from the remote Tabalchhari area, said: “We are suffering due to the poor condition of the road. It takes us almost four hours now to travel to Matiranga from border area, whereas it used to take only one and a half hours.”
Maleka Begum, a regular commuter and also headmistress of a government primary school, says she has not seen any repairs for at least for a decade. "At times the bus staff that runs on the route charge extra fare because of the broken road, which also makes it almost impossible to get a bus in due time,” she added.
When asked about the extra fare, Nur Mohammad, a bus driver said, “The to-and-fro journey becomes boring as we cannot drive the bus at our expected speed due to the huge number of potholes along the route. The potholes also damage the vehicle’s parts and keep us from making usual trips, eventually we have to count losses.”
On the issue, executive engineer of Khagrachhari RHD Mohammad Ismail Hossain said they have taken projects of Tk85m to reconstruct, repair and carpet the faulty roads.
"We gave the work order to Farisha Trade on the first week of May 2011 but the construction firm stopped the work after completing some 10-12km of the road,” he said.
He added that the construction firm stopped due to shortage of funds. They said that due to the price hike of essential materials they might end up with a huge loss if they completed the work early.
Last year on March 8, Communication Minister Obaidul Kader summoned a few road construction firms of his ministry to fix the damaged roads but the firms refused to do the work.
Ismail Hossain also said there is no chance of the road being repaired before the rainy season starts, since it already under the process of being handed over to the Khagrachhari Hill District Council from July 1st, 2013.
