Are sidewalks for construction material storage?
(Clockwise) Construction materials obstruct path of pedestrians trying to walk on the sidewalk at Momin Road, rickshaws have been parked and concrete has been piled on sidewalks at Firingee Bazar Road in the port city. Photo: Zobaer Hossain Sikder
The vendors and a section of traders have again occupied most of the sidewalks and major portion of the busy roads in the port city, causing suffering to the pedestrians. The matter remained uncared for long due to indifference of the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC), the prime authority to maintain the city streets and footpaths. Eviction drives by different authorities during the immediate past caretaker government managed to keep the footpaths and streets clear at least for a few months. But for lack of such drives in last one and a half years the same old problem appeared again, city dwellers alleged. The busy roads like Port Connecting Road, Agrabad Excess Road, Dhaka Trunk Road, DT Lane and Jubilee Road were expanded, evicting illegal structures while footpaths were also built on both the sides of these roads few years ago. But these footpaths are now of no use of the pedestrians as a section of traders run their businesses keeping their materials like iron rods, scrap sheets, iron pipes, machineries and other equipments on the sidewalks. Besides, construction materials like bricks, sands, bamboos and concretes are also seen on the footpaths and on a good portion of these roads hampering both public and vehicular movements. Vendors and hawkers have again occupied the footpaths of the busy streets and areas like Station Road, New Market to Kotwali Moor, New Market to Amtal, Kadamtali, Subhapur Bus Stand, BRTC Fruit Market, Sheikh Mujib Road, Muradpur, EPZ Moor and streets in Agrabad Commercial Area, Sumi, a student of Chittagong City College, has to suffer a lot to walk to the college from her nearby residence at Nandankanon as the hawkers have returned to footpaths and occupied a good portion of the road from New Market to Amtal. She said she can't remember when the footpath on this busy and narrow road was free for the pedestrians. She said to pass the little distance she is to hire a rickshaw only to avoid the unpleasant crowd but passing the area by a rickshaw is not easy since the road remains gridlocked for all the day due to hawkers. Saiful Islam, a retired banker who uses the footpath to take his grand daughter to her school everyday, said it is really difficult to walk along the footpath as the construction materials are always kept on it. The flower shops and nurseries of Momin Road have stockpiled flowers, garlands and plants on the footpath to run their business. Car parking in front of the flower shops added suffering to the pedestrians. When asked Babul, staff of Oporajita Flower Shop, said due to lack of enough space in the shops they stockpile the flowers on the footpaths in the morning when brought from different parts of the district. Swapan, a resident of Madarbari, said indifferent attitude to the problem of the authorities concerned creates scope for the traders to occupy the footpaths. Besides, buses and trucks occupy major portion of many busy roads like Dhaka Trunk Roads, Kadamtali and Port Connecting Road, leaving a very small portion for vehicular movement. Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) Chief Engineer Nizam Uddin said they are concerned about the problem and would launch a drive soon to keep the footpaths and roads clear. He said they can't launch drive to clear the sidewalks as they have no magistrate at present.
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