Airport in bad shape
Recently, I went to Zia International Airport to receive a guest coming from the US and made my entry into the concourse hall by purchasing a ticket of Tk 200. The plane was delayed and meanwhile I went to the nearby washroom. To my utter horror, I found the place worse than a village service latrine. It was beyond use. All kinds of garbage including human shits were found stuffed and filled up the broken commode and around it and I had to burst out of the room. Believe me, the first thing I did after reaching home was to take a full bath and tried to forget the scene I encountered in the toilet room! The tea stalls around the area were found using those washrooms to clean their utensils and dumping of wastes as well! If you enter the airport you will find gross deterioration, so far cleanliness is concerned everywhere compared to what we used to see during the caretaker government. The information booth before the parking no.1 of the arrival area is littered with garbage and it seemed the area was not cleaned for days. Besides, the pathetic plight of the passengers continues due to inordinate delay in arrival of the baggage. The sufferings of the incoming passengers particularly our expatriate workers from the brokers, taxi drivers, porters etcetera outside the terminal continue unabated despite several so called drives by the CAAB authorities.
The government is now talking about the upgrading of the airports. But who will implement the plan? Certainly it is not possible with the present administration managing the services in the airports now. There is no other alternative but to contract out the airport services to the foreign agencies if we are really interested to upgrade the service standard to international level. Otherwise, trying to carry out the upgrading with the present administration will amount to crying in the wilderness.
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