Jashore LGED constructs 967km new roads in 4 years

A 10km road from Basundia area in Jashore's Sadar upazila to Dhalgaon area in Bagharpara upazila caved in at places and became full of potholes due to heavy vehicles plying on it.

Spending Tk10 crore in fiscal year 2019-20, the Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) department in Jashore reconstructed the road, which has improved the lives of people in at least 10 villages.

Meanwhile, the Jashore LGED has spent around Tk2.65 crore in constructing around 4.4km of road from Benapole DC Road to Ghiba area in Sharsha upazila. People from 8-10 villages can now commute easily to the Benapole land port by this road.

The Jashore LGED constructed around 967km roads, which cost more than Tk69 crores in the last four years.

At the same time, they renovated around 671km roads spending Tk20.84 crore and set up around 924 meter of bridges in rural areas, which cost around Tk9 crore.

According to the LGED office in Jashore, 276km of new roads worth Tk16.50 crore were constructed, and 13km roads were reconstructed at a cost of Tk4.4 crore during FY2016-17 in Jashore.

In FY2017-18, the Jashore LGED constructed 190km new roads, which cost Tk11.40 crore, and reconstructed 116km roads at a cost of around Tk5 crore.

In FY2018-2019, the LGED constructed around 323km new roads worth Tk29.55 crore and reconstructed 167.50km roads at a cost of Tk6.75 crore.

During the fiscal year 2019-20, the Jashore LGED constructed 178km roads worth Tk11.92 crore and reconstructed 275km roads, which cost Tk4.5 crore.

Sharsha Upazila Engineer MM Mamun Hasan said, "There are 1,182km roads up to the root level under our maintenance. Among these, 712km are earthen roads."

Mamun Hasan said they have been building new roads and renovating older ones based on the government allocation every year.

Sadar Upazila Engineer Nazmul Huda said, "It is our duty to maintain rural roads. We have been working tirelessly to build these roads."

Under the maintenance of the LGED in Jashore district, there are 9,240km roads, of which 6,230km are earthen roads, while 2,231km are paved and around 776km are semi-paved roads.

Abul Biswas, a resident of Dhalgram area in Bagharpara upazila, said, "People of this region benefit from the newly-constructed road from Basundia to our village. Now we can bring our products to traditional haats and markets easily."

Bagharpara Upazila Engineer Abu Sufian said the tender process for renovating the dilapidated roads has been completed and the contractors will start work very soon.

Professor Sukumar Das, president of Sachetan Nagarik Committee Jashore, said it is LGED's responsibility to construct roads in rural areas and they are working to develop roads, but they have to improve the quality of their work.

Mirza Md Iftekhar Ali, executive engineer of LGED, Jashore, said, "Every year we renovate 150km of roads, which are partially broken."

"The government is giving special attention to reconstructing rural roads and we are trying to make the government initiative successful," he added.