Unruly buses add to woes at Mawa

Lack of navigability and using the port area as a parking lot by buses are raising sufferings of travellers going through the Mawa-Kewrakandi route.

On Monday morning, more than 300 vehicles were stuck at both sides of the crossing.

“Lack of navigability is constricting the Kabutarkhola channel. Only one-way travel is possible forcing the ferries to cross one by one,” inland water transport authority BIWTA’s Mawa port manager Shirajul Haque told bdnews24.com.

Meanwhile, an on-site visit revealed that local buses were on the way to piers one and two, blocking long route vehicles from utilising all three landing stations. As a result, only pier three is being used. This leads to at least two more hours in loading and unloading each ferry.

“As a result, tailbacks at both sides of the crossing are increasing,” Shirajul said and added that at mid-day, nearly 200 vehicles were waiting their turn.

A total of 12 ferries are operating at the crossing.

“The local buses commuting on the Dhaka-Mawa highway have no parking space. These buses are blocking the two piers,” Munshiganj’s assistant superintendent of police Mohammad Saiful Islam told bdnews24.com.

He added that even though the buses were moved to Mawa intersection during the Eid, the bus owners have resumed parking at the piers.

“We are trying our best to avoid tailbacks at the port,” he added.

Addressing the issue, Munshiganj’s deputy commissioner Mohammad Azizul Alam said, “I have been alerted about the situation and have instructed the police to take necessary steps.”

Meanwhile, a Kewrakandi-bound ferry, with nine vehicles on board, got stuck on in a sandbar at Naodoba turning of the channel around 7pm on Sunday. It was recovered after three and quarter hours. Ferries were caught repeatedly on the sandbanks of the crossing on Sunday spiking travellers’ sufferings.

Travellers had to face nine hours of gridlock on Saturday also.

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