PM opens waterway around Dhaka
UNB, Dhaka
Prime Minister Khaleda Zia yesterday inaugurated the 26.5-km Swarighat-Ashulia circular waterway around the capital that will ease a nagging pressure on the city's communications network through providing cheaper and cleaner transportation facility.In the first phase of the waterway project, people can now travel and carry goods from Ashulia to Swarighat trading heartland of Dhaka. About one lakh people are expected to commute and 6,000 tonnes of goods to be carried on the new route of communications. Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) is implementing the Tk 35.99-crore Circular Waterways Project, which will particularly alleviate traffic load on the Narayanganj-Dhaka land route. The total project will have 10 landing stations at Swarighat, Kholamora, Lalbagh, Basila, Rayerbazar, Gabtali, Amin Bazar, Shirnirtek, Berulia and Ashulia. The stations will be completed by the end of this year. Khaleda inaugurated the waterway unveiling the plaque of the Ashulia landing station. Addressing the opening function at Ashulia BIWTA landing station, Khaleda said her government wants development suitable with the country's tradition and nature and utilise the geophysical and natural advantages for national prosperity. "Through this we can find out real Bangladesh -- we can discover the country's immense potency and potentiality -- and we can do the impossible by utilising the potential," she told the function also attended by ministers, MPs, various professionals and a large number of local people. On completion of the project, load on land routes will be reduced in transportation of passengers and goods between Dhaka and Narayanganj, the prime minister observed. She directed authorities to start the work of the second phase of the Circular Waterways Project. Khaleda said under the project, the Turag, Shitalakhya and Balu rivers and Tongi canal would be dredged and a river port set up at Tongi. If necessary, bus stations would also be set up along the route, she added. She expressed the hope that tourism industry would flourish centring the waterways as tourists from home and abroad get a close touch of the tradition and aesthetic views of the historic city of Dhaka over this water-route. Presided over by Shipping Minister Lt Col (Retd) Akbar Hossain, the function was also addressed by LGRD Minister Abdul Mannan Bhuiyan, Communications Minister Nazmul Huda, lawmaker SA Khaleque, Shipping Secretary M Rafiqul Islam and BIWTA Chairman Dr Reaz Hassan Khandokar.
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