Villagers offer money, labour for building road

Villagers of Sengram raised to local representatives only one demand -- construction of pucca (carpeted) road for their easy communication. The elected officials from the chairman of Jalalpur union parishad to the lawmaker representing Dakkhin (south) Surma upazila, too, made the pre-polls pledge to make it.

A few years elapsed in the meantime but the villagers said their demand for construction of the carpeted road in their neighbourhood remained unmet.

The aggrieved villagers finally took an initiative to build the road with their own money and labour. Showing their noble gesture, the local people contributed money to the fund for purchasing construction materials of the road.

The one-and-a-quarter-kilometre-long and 16-fooet wide road costs Tk 1 million (10 lakh), said Subal Chandra Pal (66), a retired headmaster of Boiragibazar High School. The construction work began in in August 2014 and resumed in December after a break due to harvesting of rice.

The villagers themselves are working hard to complete the construction by this month. This reporter visiting the spot on Monday found that the elderly people were monitoring the construction while the younger ones volunteering physical labour.

"The elders have taken the great initiative and we are putting our hands together to make it," Korno Pal, a third year student at MC College, Sylhet, told Prothom Alo.

The villagers said more than 2,500 students use this road everyday to go to different schools and colleges.

Sulaiman Hossain, the chairman of Jalalpur union, appreciated the villagers' initiative and said the road would lessen the sufferings of the local people. He regretted that he prepared a project proposal for this road but no money was available.

However, the member of parliament (MP) from Dokkhin Shurma-Fenchuganj), Mahmud-Us-Samad Chowdhury, said that he was not aware of the villagers demand for construction of the road.