Moynul Haque Mridha, Rajbari

Complaints have been received about the use of substandard parking tiles in the construction of a spectacular footpath over the drain on the main road of Goalando Municipality in Rajbari. Which is already broken in different places.

In this situation, municipal administrator and upazila executive officer Joti Bikash Chandra has stopped work.

It is known that the Goalando municipality has recently constructed 7 RCC drains of 3 kilometers at a cost of 9.6 million taka to remove the waterlogging of Goalando city and speed up water drainage.

This drain is 5 feet 8 inches wide and has an average depth of 7 feet. M/s KKR Enterprises is the contractor for the work under the supervision of Directorate of Public Health Engineering and Goalando Municipality, funded by the World Bank. However, the work is mainly done by a commissioner of Goalando Municipality along with some contractors of Goalando.

According to municipal sources, a new road was broken from Torai's shop in Goalando Bazar to Bazar Railgate and a drain was constructed there.

A project was undertaken to widen the road by resurfacing another 333 meters of road and laying tiles on 196 meters of drains. 49 lakh 83 thousand taka is estimated for this work. M/s Chowdhury Enterprise of Salauddin Chowdhury of Goalando Upazila got the responsibility of the work. But even though the work of tiles has started, the work of 333 meters has not been done properly.

During the on-site discussion, some locals said that initially the work of tiles was going fairly well. But after the change in the political landscape of the country, the contractor hastily started working with low-quality materials.

The tiles are already broken at various places. The broken tiles are breaking into pieces with little pressure.

In this regard, the contractor Salauddin Chowdhury said, minimum time is not available for the tiles to solidify after laying. People are walking and taking rickshaws and autorickshaws on it. It has broken tiles in many places. However, the broken tiles will be removed and good quality tiles will be installed. He also said, we have not received any bill yet, moreover, we have to pay the bill after repairing the broken tiles in all those places.

Upazila Public Health Engineer Md. Shahidul Islam said, I have told the contractor several times that the bill will not be paid if he works with low-quality materials. This will be done again if necessary.

Goalando Upazila Executive Officer and Municipal Administrator Joti Vikas Chandra said, "As soon as I heard the complaint of work with low-quality materials, I ordered to stop the work. He is monitoring the matter to ensure the quality of work. He further said that there is no scope for substandard work.