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Bridge incomplete for years, thousands suffer

S DILIP ROY, Lalmonirhat
People of ten villages in Mogholhat and Kulaghat unions under Lalmonirhat Sadar upazila are suffering as abridge over the Rotnai River at Saprikhana village under the upazila has remained incompleteforyears.
Over 15 thousand people of the ten villages --Bongram, Shiberkuti, Saprikhana, Etapota, Boalmari, Char Kulaghat, Saherghat, Badherpar, Daserkuti and Mondolpara have to cross the Rotnai River by boat to communicate with the district headquarters.
The work for construction of 92-metie-long and 7.6-metre-wide bridge over the Rotnai River at Saprikhana village in Sadar upazila started in January 2003 with an estimated cost of Tk 3 crore and 60 lakh. Lalmonirhat Roads and Highways Department (RHD) gave work order to construction firm Smrity Enterprise in Bogra to complete the bridge in two years.
But after constructing six pillars of the bridge during the stipulated period, the firm left the work and did not respond even after the RHD served ten letters to the firm on different occasions, RHD officials said.
Finally the contractor expressed their inability to complete the work and 'surrendered' it to the RHD in December2008.
The RHD in December 2009 gave a Tk 2 crore and 44
lakh work order to Dhakabased construction firm Islam Brothers to complete the bridge by April 2011.
But the firm missed three deadlines, lasfly in June this year, and then stopped the work due to fund constraints.
Class Ten student Harunur Rashid, 15, of Saprikhana village, said, "I and over a hundred other students of the area read at different schools and colleges in the town. We have to cross the Rotnai River by boat daily to go there, as the bridge has remained incomplete for
years. Our sufferings mount during the rainy season.”
The bridge is very much needed for several thousand people of ten villages in Mogholhat and Kulaghat unions, as it is their only way to communicate with Lalmonirhat district headquarters, said Habibur Rahman Habib, chairman of Mogholhat union parishad.
Nazim Uddin, managing director of the construction firm, said, "My firm has already completed 70 percent of the work but I am having fund problem as the authorities concerned have
paid only 22 lakh taka. I will complete the bridge by December this year if they clear dues against the completed work."
Admitting that the construction firm has got only a small portion of the bill against their 70 percent work, Lalmonirhat RHD Executive Engineer Suruz Miahsaid, "I sent forwarding letters to the authority concerned of Incomplete Bridge Project under the communications ministry in May and June this year seeking payment of due bills to the construction firm but I am yet to get any response."