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Beribadh Road losing usefulness for encroachment

Helemul Alam
A potential bypass for Dhaka city, the Beribadh Road connecting Tongi and Postogola is fast becoming unusable for encroachment, unplanned junctions and its battered condition.
The 35.5-km two-lane road doubling as an embankment could greatly reduce traffic jam in different parts of the city including Gabtoli and Gulistan.
"If the authorities made this embankment a four-lane road and stopped encroachment, it would solve a big traffic problem of Dhaka city," said SM Saleh Uddin, managing director of Urban Habitats, a body of consultants for transport-related infrastructure development.
The embankment initially designed to be developed into a four-lane road could also serve as an exit point of the city towards the country's southern part through Second Buriganga Bridge, allowing traffic to avoid congested Gulistan, North South Road and Nayabazar.
A truck driver Amzad Hossain said, “It sometimes takes half a day to go to Postogola from Gabtoli through the city. The embankment road could give us a great relief from that traffic congestion.”
Due to encroachment and unplanned slip roads, travelling on the road turns into a nightmare at a dozen places, including Sadarghat, Telghat, Balughat, Shwarighat, Badamtali, Kamalbagh, Islambagh, Killarmore, Hatirghat Section, Hajaribagh and Kamrangirchar.
Locals said illegal structures had been constructed over the years at
different points on the land earmarked for developing the embank-ment into a four-lane road. Moreover goods of different markets and factories are piled up, and vehicles are parked on it, they said.
A driver of a city bus of the route, Mohidul Islam said it took about three hours to travel to Gabtoli from Babubazar Bridge due to the sorry state of the road and illegal parking.
Nearly 24 years after the embankment was built, it has not yet been
developed as a proper bypass. Bangladesh Water Development Board and Roads and Highways Department (RHD) are supposed to maintain the road but negligence is apparent everywhere.
Executive Engineer of RHD Dhaka division Jikrul Hasan blamed movement of heavy freight vehicles and a lack of drainage system for the road's rapid damage. “There are places along the road where the city corporation trucks are dumping
rubbish, also contributing to the damage.”
Sub-divisional Engineer of Dhaka-2 of the Water Development Board, Ranjit Kumar Pal said they would evict encroachers from the road after the deputy commissioner's office completed demarcating the Turag and Buriganga rivers, determining how much space the embankment had. “Only 50 percent of the demarcation has been completed," he said.