Nalitabari-Haluaghat Road in Sherpur Crumbles into Disrepair
One of the main roads connecting Nalitabari in Sherpur with Haluaghat has been in poor condition for years. About 7.5 kilometres of the road in Nalitabari are filled with numerous potholes and large craters. Even light rain leaves knee-deep water in several places, forcing thousands of people to travel at risk every day. Traders, pedestrians and vehicle drivers are facing serious difficulties and local residents have called for immediate repairs.
The road is important for communication between Nalitabari, which borders India in Sherpur, and Haluaghat, which borders Sherpur from Mymensingh. It has long played an important role in trade between the two upazilas, particularly for transporting paddy and rice, imported stone, mineral coal and other goods. The Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) upgraded about 7.5 kilometres of the Nalitabari section from a brick-paved road to an asphalt road in the 1997-98 fiscal year. The road was last repaired in the 2018-19 fiscal year. No major renovation has been carried out since then.
As a result, the asphalt surface has worn away under the pressure of thousands of vehicles travelling on the road every day. In some places, the road base has also deteriorated, creating large potholes and uneven sections. The damage is not limited to the road surface. In several places, the banks of adjacent ponds have collapsed, damaging parts of the paved road and narrowing it.
Small and major accidents frequently occur as drivers try to avoid the potholes. In some cases, vehicles have fallen into ditches and overturned, temporarily blocking part of the road. The worst section is around Arani Bazar in Nalitabari municipal town. Even light rain causes knee-deep water to accumulate on different parts of the road, causing severe problems for traders, pedestrians and local residents.
Some repair work has already begun. Construction is underway on about 700 metres of the road, from the memorial monument in Nalitabari town to the end of a bridge currently under construction. The project is estimated to cost around Tk 4.4 million. Upazila Engineer Md. Sharaf Uddin said a proposal has been submitted to repair the remaining nearly seven kilometres of the road.
Local residents have called for the remaining section to be repaired quickly. They said this would reduce the long-standing suffering of people in the two upazilas and improve the transportation of goods and trade between the areas.
