Dhaka-Ctg highway off-limits to vehicles for 7-hour every day till Sept 7
Vehicular movement on Meghna and Meghna-Gumti bridges on Dhaka-Chittagong highway will remain suspended for seven hours from 11:00pm every day till September 7 due to repair work that began last night.
The government has arranged an alternative route to divert around 30,000 vehicles plying the highway each day. The detour for the Dhaka-Chittagong traffic is Dhaka-Bhairab-Brahmanbaria-Moinamati-Chittagong.
This means people will have to travel an extra 90km.
Vehicles coming from Dhaka would be stopped at Kanchpur bridge from 11:00pm and diverted to Narsingdi while those from Chittagong would be stopped at Moinamati at 10:30pm and diverted toward Brahmanbaria to facilitate the repair.
Both the bridges are under threat due to damages to the hinge bearings, expansion joints and river-bed scouring.
The temporary repair work has begun three months after the government had assigned Bangladesh Army to do the job.
“We are going for temporary renovation to keep the bridges fit for traffic until we start main repair work at the end of this year,” said Col Rafique Ullah, project director of Meghna and Meghna-Gumti bridges’ rehabilitation project.
A good number of military police and highway police personnel will be deployed at Kanchpur and Moinamati points as well as the two bridges to check vehicular movement.
“In a bid to control the huge number of vehicles, we held a number of coordination meetings with the local administration and leaders of different transport owners’ associations and unions. We hope the situation will be under control,” said Col Rafique.
Courtesy of The Daily Star
