Bus journey to most places outside the capital now takes double the usual time for battered highways, tailbacks and delayed ferries, adding to woes of the people going home to celebrate Eid.
Those who had come out smiling from the struggle to get bus tickets soon found themselves in for an agonising ride.
Tasmia Osman Raka, a college student, started for Feni from Sayedabad around 10:40am yesterday. Her bus did not even get past Comilla cantonment after seven hours, which is less than 100 km from Dhaka.
"Usually, it takes me three hours to reach home. Now seven hours have gone, but I'm still stuck near Comilla," she said talking on her mobile phone around 5:30pm.
For the southbound buses, the problems are aggravated at ferry terminals where they have to queue for several hours to cross the rivers.
Thousands of people remain stuck on Dhaka-Aricha highway for hours either for traffic congestion or unavailability of ferries at Paturia.
Zakir Hossain, a fourth-year student of a private university, said he had to spend around two hours at Paturia ferry ghat on his way to Satkhira, yet he considers himself lucky.
"We heard that the buses that left Dhaka later than ours were in line for over four hours at Paturia," Zakir told The Daily Star around 5:00pm from Jhikargachha of Jessore, around 40km from his house. His bus started from Dhaka around 7:45am.
At Mawa ferry terminal, several hundred vehicles wait long hours to cross the Padma every day.
Ferries have difficulty navigating on the narrow and shallow channels of the Padma. The longer they take to cross the river, the longer the queues of vehicles get, said AS Ashiquzzaman, assistant general manager of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation. A total of 16 ferries are now in operation, he added.
For many, the sufferings grind on as rundown vehicles, which have been patched up to cash in on the rush home, break down on the road.
Even engines of relatively better-kept buses often cut out because of cratered roads. Whenever a vehicle breaks down, it makes the traffic in its wake slow to a crawl.
The passengers have to sit for hours with no room to stretch legs and almost no access to foods and toilet.
Lutfor Rahman, a businessman, said he with his wife and two children left for Kurigram around 11:30pm on Thursday. "We were stuck for hours in a 20km tailback on the highway. There were no water and foods for thousands of people desperate to have something for sehri. Women and children were the worst sufferers with no toilets. It was like a never-ending nightmare."
Travelling to the northeast is not easy either. A four to four-and-a-half-hour journey to Sylhet has now doubled. "We faced a huge tailback near Kanchpur Bridge in Narayanganj and Bhairab," said Anwar Hossain, a businessman, who left the capital at 6:30am and reached Sylhet around 2:30pm.
The condition of Dhaka-Mymensingh and Dhaka-Tangail highways has not improved much in the last few days. Transport owners had earlier suspended bus service on these roads for several days.
Shamsuddin Miah, 45, of Kalihati upazila in Tangail, said he started from Mohakhali around 11:00am and reached home six hours later due to tailbacks and poor condition of the highway. Usually, it is a three-hour journey.
Things are not that different on Dhaka-Chittagong highway. Mohammad Tawhid, a sales manager of Saudia Paribahan (bus service provider) said it now takes four hours more to reach the port city due to gridlocks and dilapidated condition of the highway.
Romesh Chandra Ghosh, managing director of Shyamoli Paribahan, one of the largest bus service providers in the country with 400 buses in its fleet, said all his buses are taking around double the usual time to reach their destinations. "On average, it now takes about eight to nine hours to cover 300km," he said.
"On Dhaka-Chittagong highway, traffic jams start from Daudkandi and stretch up to Sitakunda. Buses going to the northern districts face up to 20km-long queues from Chandra in Gazipur," he added.
"With the slightest rainfall in the coming days, the situation will deteriorate meaning more time loss on the roads and more misery," said Ghosh, also vice-president of the Bangladesh Bus Truck Owners Association.
Kazi Mizanur Rahman, a manager of Hanif Paribahan, another large bus service provider, said many of its buses leaving Dhaka for outside districts are being late for their return trip as they reach their destinations late. This has left their schedules in disarray.
After visiting Konabari, Chandra, Savar, Nabinagar and Bipile yesterday, Asfiquzzaman Akhter, senior superintendent of highway police (Gazipur Range), said traffic was very slow due to bad roads.
Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain, however, claimed that the slow traffic is usual during Eid. "There is no problem in traffic movement as we have already repaired 90 percent of the damaged roads and highways," he told The Daily Star yesterday.
Our correspondents from Tangail, Mymensingh, Munshiganj, Sylhet, Chittagong, Dinajpur and Manikganj contributed to this report.
Source : The Daily Star
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