The 55-year-old derelict bridge over the Swarnamoti river in Aditmari upazila in the district runs the risk of collapsing any time.
About 4,000 vehicles including loaded trucks and passenger buses cross the bridge on Lalmonirhat-Burimari highway amid fears of an accident.
Built in 1958 over the Swarnamoti river, the bridge’s life span expired 15 years ago, yet there has been no renovations due to fund crunch.
The bridge connects Lalmonirhat district headquarters with four other upazilas, plus neighbouring districts and other parts of the country, as a lone channel of communications.
In case the bridge collapses, communications will break down, leading to a halt in the export-import activities between Bangladesh and India through Burimari Land Port and the government will be deprived from huge revenues.
Lalmonirhat Roads and Highways Department (RHD) made several attempts to fully repair the bridge, but failed due to fund constraints.
In 2003, the Lalmonirhat RHD hung signboard warning “Risky Bridge, Go Slow” on both sides of the bridge.
The signboard has also recently been put up for the fifth time as the bridge still remains in a vulnerable state.
The RHD repaired one of the four spans of the bridge in 1998-1999 fiscal, and in the current fiscal, it made a partial renovation just to ensure the movement of vehicles.
Lalmonirhat RHD recently sent a proposal to higher authorities with an estimated cost of Tk50m to build a 93.02-metre-long and 7.50-metre-wide new bridge replacing the old one, but it is yet to get any response.
Trucker Ziaul Haque from Munshiganj told this correspondent whenever he comes to Burimari Land Port, he prays to the Almighty for safe crossing of the Swarnamoti bridge.
Another truck driver Abdul Quadery echoed the same sentiment.
He said the bridge is fully unfit for use, but it is still being used as there is no other alternative way to go to Burimari Land Port.
Locals said they demanded construction of a new bridge replacing the risky one five years ago, but their demands have went unheeded.
People of four other upazilas will undergo untold sufferings, moreover government development work will be put to a halt if the bridge collapses anytime they pointed out.
The Aditmari upazila Chairman Sirazul Haque, also president of Lalmonirhat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said it has become urgently necessary to construct a new bridge replacing the old one.
The bridge has posed to be a death trap due to its vulnerablity.
Sirazul Haque called upon the government for sanctioning fund to construct a new bridge immediately.
Executive Engineer of Lalmonirhat RHD Suruz Miah said his office had sent a project profile for the sixth time to the concerned ministry to no effect.
