Prolonged road digging by government agencies especially by the Dhaka Water Supply and Sewerage Authority creates public sufferings as such activities hinder traffic, the Dhaka City Corporation said.
Senior city corporation officials on Thursday said private companies, individuals or even government agencies needed to complete utility service repairs three days inside the digging of the roads after taking permission.
The corporation’s chief executive officer Abul Kalam Azad said government agencies such as Dhaka WASA, Titas Gas Transmission and Distribution Company, Dhaka Power Distribution Company, Dhaka Electric Supply Company and the Bangladesh Telecommu-nications Company needed to have their permission if they wanted to dig roads for utility service repairs.
Azad said they faced problems when such organisations prolonged the work. He cited the example of WASA, which took long to complete its job at Mirpur and Jigatola.
‘Perhaps they cannot complete their job by the stipulated time and the time given by the city corporation because of limitations and other setbacks,’ Azad said.
Referring to citizens’ complaints, he said, ‘Traffic congestion is a common phenomenon when agencies to the repairs by digging roads.’
Azad said WASA was also a government agency working in public interest. But other private organisations, when they dig roads, do not cause major problems.
The corporation was working on a policy to stop road digging during the rainy season and discourage such jobs during the day in places where traffic congestion might happen.
The road stretching from the Jigatola post office to the Shafique leather point at Dhanmondi has become a death trap for residents as the areas get inundated even during a light rainfall.
Mahmuda Nahed, a resident of Jigatola, said the road stretch was damaged because of digging by different agencies. ‘Utility service organisations keep digging the road. It has been in a poor shape for about a year now.’
Dilruba Akhter, a resident of Sipahibagh, said the road leading to the kitchen market had become unfit for use even for pedestrians because of digging and pipes being piled up.
Residents of Demra area said traffic congestion became a regular phenomenon in the area because of the Jatrabari flyover construction.
‘We need to waste an hour and a half to cross a stretch of only seven kilometres, from Demra to Sayedabad,’ said Sabekun Nahar, a resident of the area.
Mohammad Abrar Hossain, a resident of Senpara, said WASA took about a year and a half to complete its job on a 300-foot road stretch.
WASA is now digging roads at Mirpur, Sayedabad, Lalmatia, Dhanmondi, Kalyanpur, English Road, Baridhara, Gulshan, Banani and many other places in the capital.
In reply to a query, the Dhaka WASA’s managing director Mohammad Liakath Ali said their work at times inconvenienced people as they failed to do the job by the estimated time.
‘When we dig roads, sometime we find networks of agencies such as Titas or DESCO in the place. In such cases sometimes we need to stop our job so that other networks could not get damaged,’ he said.
WASA then calls for help from the organisations concerned which delay their work plan, he said.
