Suffering at Kalurghat: Bridge, ferry fail to mitigate passenger sufferings
Kalurghat bridge connects Boalkhali and Patiya upazilas with Chattogram city.
Hasina Begum, a 60-year-old woman, came to Chattogram city with her son-in-law to see a doctor. The woman, suffering from diabetes and high blood pressure, failed to cross the river through the newly opened ferry terminal at Kalurghat after waiting for almost four hours.
"It is very difficult to wait for so long with a sick body. If a patient is severely ill, he or she will die on the spot. I have been seeing such suffering in crossing the river at Kalurghat since my childhood. Governments have come and gone, but our fate has not changed. It is our sin that we were born in Boalkhali," she told TBS on Wednesday in a state of depression.
This Kalurghat bridge connects Boalkhali and Patiya upazilas with Chattogram city.
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All types of road vehicles as well as trains used to pass through this bridge.
However, traffic on the bridge was stopped at 11am on Tuesday due to repair works that will take three months to be completed. As an alternative, ferries have been introduced on the Karnaphuli River. But thousands of people are suffering due to a lack of ferries and the terminal being submerged.
At around one o'clock today, a one-kilometre long line of vehicles was seen from Ferry Ghat to Arakan Road. These included motorcycles, CNG-powered autorickshaws, pickups, goods trucks, tempos, microbuses, etc.
Many of these vehicles have been stranded here since 8am.
Both wharfs of Kalurghat have been submerged, with the southern side going under water completely.
At around 12 noon a ferry left the northern end of Karnaphuli River with a few vehicles and passengers but upon reaching the ghat it could not dock as the wharf was submerged.
Later the ferry returned to the city edge again. At that time, cargo vans, tempos and motorcycle drivers were forced to drive in water to return to the shore. During this time, the engines of several cars were damaged.
Jahangir, the driver of such a tempura, said, "I used to earn Tk800-900 a day. Today at the end of the whole day I will have to spend Tk1,500-Tk2,000 to repair the engine."
Jasim, a truck driver, was on his way to Patiya from Mirsarai with a consignment of Confidence Cement. He said that even though he came to the ferry wharf at 9am, he did not get the serial as only one ferry was running. Later the ghat was closed down due to a high tide.
Roads and Highways officials said that due to a dispute over motorcycle toll last night, the ferry service was stopped till 8am this morning. A ferry was then introduced due to huge traffic. But at around 11am the ferry had to be stopped again as the platform for docking the ferry had been submerged in the tidal water.
However, passengers complained that this suffering could have been avoided if two ferries were operated in the morning when there was low tide. Besides, because the link road is not raised as per requirement, the bridge and the link road are sinking at low tide.
Nizam Uddin, sub-divisional engineer of Chattogram Roads and Highways department, told The Business Standard, "It is true that the passengers are suffering, but the height of the link road and footpath has to be ascertained according to certain rules. Besides, the problem arose due to high tide; it will be solved as soon as the tide abates."
Same suffering, same promise for 33 years:
In 1914 there arose a need for the bridge for Myanmar soldiers to cross the river during World War I. The bridge was built in 1930 by a bridge-building firm called Brunick and Company Bridge Builders. In 1958, the bridge was given its present form by making it suitable for all types of vehicles.
The one-way bridge carries trains as well as vehicles. When vehicles move on one side of the bridge, the other side is closed. As a result, long traffic jams have been going on for more than three decades. Since the parliamentary elections of 1991, the issue of Kalurghat Bridge has been gaining importance in the campaigns and promises of candidates irrespective of political parties. But this promise has not been implemented in the last 33 years.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in her address to the nation on the first anniversary of the Awami League government in 2010 promised to build another bridge over the Karnaphuli river. But it took 13 years for multiple feasibility studies, and to develop and modify the bridge's design.
Mustafa Naeem, joint convener of the Boalkhali-Kalurghat Bridge Implementation Council, said, "We do not want the bridge to fall under any political or electoral speeches. The bridge has become the main demand of the people of South Chattogram."
