Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Saturday inaugurated the much-hyped Bahaddarhat flyover in Chittagong and sought vote for Awami League in the next election to “maintain the continuity of government for expediting development and accomplishing the unfinished tasks. “We’ve implemented massive works for ensuring socio-economic development, for which continuity of the development is very much needed. We’ve been fulfilling one after another the pledges that we made,” she said at a function at Lalkhanbazar after inaugurating the 1.5-kilometer-long flyover. Special Works Organization chief of Bangladesh Army Brig Gen Shamsul Alam Khan and Chittagong Development Authority (CDA) chairman Abdus Salam also spoke on the occasion.
Primary and Mass Education Minister Dr Afsarul Ameen, Industries Minister Dilip Barua, and Forests and Environment Minister Dr Hasan Mahmud were present.
Hasina said that her government has completed many tasks and is also in the process of completing some others, “We’ll have to turn Bangladesh into a prosperous developed country by 2021 so that it could stand on its own feet. For this, there is a need for maintaining the continuity of government,”
She said the Bahaddarhat flyover would be named after eminent AL leader MA Mannan while the 5-kilometer-long Muradpur-Lalkhanbazar flyover named after later AL leader Akhtaruzzaman Chowdhury Babu.
Besides, she informed that another expressway on Airport-Agrabad-Barik Building would be built with the funding by Chittagong Port.
Hasina said she had laid the foundation stone of the 1.5-kilometer-long Bahaddarhat flyover in 2010 and the project work started in 2011 with some Tk 145 crore spent in implementing the project.
She also termed the Bahaddarhat flyover as an Eid-ul-Azha gift for the people of the port city.
She mentioned that she had laid the foundation stones of five flyovers at five important junctions of the port city including Bohaddarhat in January 2010 involving an expenditure of Tk 260 crore.
The Prime Minister said in order to ensure balanced development of the country, her government has been implementing massive development programmes putting special importance to the development of Chittagong port city.
Referring to the death of 14 people in an accident during the construction of the flyover, the Prime Minister prayed for the salvation of the departed souls.
In this regard, she also mentioned her instant directives to all concerned including the Army, BGB, Police, Fire Brigade and Ansar soon after the accident to conduct the rescue operation, and thanked all of them for their sincere efforts
-With The Independent input
