A portion of the much-talked about 19.5-kilometre road to connect the remote Shulla area with Sunamganj district town through Derai has been washed away by floods over the past three years.
The Roads and Highways (R&H) took up this project at a cost of Tk 1.1 billion in 2010. Although the construction of four bridges and 15 culverts needed there was completed, around 40 per cent of the road remained incomplete.
The project was due to be completed by 2013 but it was given an extension in view of the difficulty of its implementation with vast haors (marshland) on both sides.
By 2017, the authorities managed to complete about 60 per cent of the project. And keeping the rest of the project incomplete, the authorities declared the project finished as ‘incomplete project’, according to official records.
By the time the project was declared finished as ‘incomplete project’ already Tk 910 million was spent, an official familiar with this said, adding the authorities failed to complete the project due to the challenge of making road through haors.
Over the three years next since 2017, one-third of the finished road, or three and a half kilometres, has been washed away by floods. That has caused sufferings to over a million people living in the areas around.
Two of the culverts have got upside down while a 120-metre area of the road in Masuakhara has been washed away, snapping the only half-done road link with upazila sadar.
The authorities have, in the meantime, prepared a new and revised project for the road and sent it to the higher authorities for approval, said another official familiar with the matter.
The proposed project includes other neighbouring areas, naming it 'Madanpur-Derai-Shulla-Jolsuka-Ajmiriganj road', he said.
The proposed project will be wider and have three feet more height alongside slope protection on both sides in a bid to give the road better protection from floods, the official said.
A new bridge and seven more culverts have also been included into the project in line with Hydrology and Morphology research, done by the River Research institute, he said.
With all these modifications, the proposed project cost has been estimated at Tk 550 million and is awaiting approval from the Road Transport and Highways Division.
Shulla upazila Chairman Al Amin Chowdhury said the original project started 10 years ago, but it remained incomplete. Again, one third of the finished road was washed away by floods, prolonging sufferings for people in the area.
Expressing disappointment over the uncertainty, he said, “We don’t know when things would be ok under the new and revised project.”
