Development projects in Khulna have remained stuck in a limbo since the beginning of the ongoing countrywide blockade, with almost no construction materials being supplied to the district because of limited transportation services.
As transportation costs for cement and iron rods have doubled fearing violence on the roads, construction ventures for private buildings are also suffering financial setbacks. Unfinished city projects that include construction or repair of roads, drains and hospitals are also causing sufferings for local residents.
Meanwhile, the Tk125 crore Khulna City Region Development Project (CRDP) remain stuck only because no stone was being supplied during the blockade. Stone as a raw material is needed to carry out the construction of drains that would stretch from the Khulna city’s PTI intersection to Royal intersection.
A total of 14 packages under the CRDP is seeing no progress at all as almost no truck is agreeing for the past three weeks to drive stone in from Nilphamari – from where the material is usually brought.
Khandakar Shahidul Islam, contractor for the construction of the city’s Taltola Hospital, said work in his project was stuck as stone cannot be brought in from Panchagarh. Although the regular truck hiring rate used to be Tk30,000 from Panchagarh, now trucks were not willing to travel even for rates as high as Tk45,000, he said.
Khulna CRDP Project Director Md Saifuddin, who is also an executive engineer for the LGED, said 26 packages worth over Tk100 crore of the development project were currently under way. All these packages needed sand and stone for construction; but it has become difficult to bring these materials into the city because of the ongoing blockade.
At the moment, paving work was going on at only three or four locations while at regular times work was being conducted at around 20 spots every day, Saifuddin said. He also said all the work might come to a halt if the blockade continued for a couple of more weeks.
Abdullah Al Masum, sub-divisional engineer of Khulna Public Works Department 1, told the Dhaka Tribune that the finishing work of the local RAB complex has been halted because of disruption in supply of sanitary work products.
Khulna City Corporation Executive Engineer Liakat Ali Khan also claimed that a lot of their work was moving at a sluggish pace because of the construction material shortage, while some of the work was at a complete standstill.
During regular times, transport vehicles reportedly travel on 18 routes from Khulna; but transport owners have stopped almost all their operations after sporadic blockade violence saw many buses and trucks being vandalised and torched in the district since the BNP-led 20-party called the programme.
Khulna Divisional Truck Workers Union General Secretat Abdur Rahim Baks Dudu said around 5,000 workers working in the region were passing trying times because of the blockade.
Shahadat Mridha, president of Khulna Motor Workers Union, also echoed Dudu’s sentiments, claiming that only one-third of the regular vehicle movement was now continuing because of the blockade.
Vice-president of Khulna Divisional Tank-Lorry Owners Association, M Mahbubur Rahma, told the Dhaka Tribune that tank-lorries should be kept out of the purview of hartals and blockades to solve the fuel crisis. He also claimed that the failure to supply fuel would hurt the agricultural sector more than industries and transport sectors, resulting in more sufferings for the people.
