Galachipa (Patuakhali)  Correspondent

The Kheya Ghat is the only means of transportation in the Galachipa upazila of Patuakhali. Irregularities  are going on in the collection of toll in  'Kheya Ghat'.

 
It is ssen.on the spot that from the morning of Thursday,   Patuakhali District Council has given the responsibility of collecting the tolls at the Galachipa Kheya Ghat to office assistants Md. Sultan Khan and Sameer Chandra Pal.

 However, the collection of tolls  has started through the Kheya Ghat boatmen. They have been collecting additional fare from passengers since the beginning of the collection of khas. It can be seen in the list of the District Council that it is supposed to charge 20 taka for motorcycle crossing and 8 taka for people crossing, whereas they are charging 30 to 50 taka per motorcycle and 10 taka per person. Also, earlier, if a passenger crossed alone, the boatmen used to charge Tk  100,  whereas now they are charging Tk  110. 

 This is how they are collecting extra money. The representative office assistant of the district council, Md. Sultan Khan, said that he took the khas collection money to his house. He also said different things about some things at different times. When asked why he took the khas collection money to his house, he said that the surveyor of the district council, Md. Hasan, and senior assistant, Md. Samim, asked him to take the collected money to his house. Meanwhile, when the surveyor of the district council, Md. Hasan, was asked on his mobile phone about keeping the khas collection money at home, he denied it. In addition, the mobile phone of senior assistant, Md. Samim, was switched off even after repeated calls. It is also known that the district council started collecting khas through its own office staff after the leaseholder of the Khea Ghat, Shibulal Das, expired. The general public of the local river crossing said that they are now taking more than what they took before. Then we were better off before? They also said that we see that the protector has now become the eater.  When asked about this, former leaseholder Shibu Lal Das said that his term has expired, so the Zilla Parishad is collecting khas, and it is not for me to know what they will do here. 

Some ferry boatmen changed their tune and said that they were better than the Zilla Parishad before, they would get the fuel money if they wanted it, and now they ask for the fuel money to run the ferry engine later. The rest has to be bought with fuel.