A group of people in Barlekha upazila joined hands to make a three-kilometre road suitable for vehicular movement as it turned from bad to worse in the last couple of years due to lack of renovation work for long.

While visiting the area recently this correspondent saw the all the potholes, developed on Kathaltali-Terakudi-Shimulia road, have been filled with mixer of cement and brick chips and made the important road much smoother than before.

Local people said the three-kilometre-long concrete road from Kathaltali to Shimulia connects several thousand residents of at least 20 nearby villagers with the upazila headquarters.

Volunteers said they started the repair works in November and after several weeks of hard labour they were able to finish the job recently.

People living at different villages on both sides of the road said failing to get attention of the authorities concerned, despite repeated requests, local people took the matter into their own hands and started the renovation work.

Many volunteers worked tirelessly during the night time for several weeks and successfully fixed hundreds of potholes that have been causing serious trouble to the commuters for long, they said.

Usually, Local Government Engineering Department (LGED) maintains the Kathaltali-Terakudi-Shimulia road, which serves as a crucial link to connect thousands of people with the upazila headquarters.

But due lack of maintenance work for years the important road developed numerous large and small potholes, which causes immense suffering to its regular users, especially after a little rain.

In the first week of November, some local youths led by one Shaheen Mia first decided to do the repair work on self-help basis, which would cost them Tk 1 lakh approximately.

Later, many other local residents including some auto-rickshaw drivers also joined them and collected the total amount of money from local community members.

One of the local residents Nazmul Islam, a banker, said under the guidance of Shaheen and Abdul Ahad, a skilled mason, local residents used to start the repair work around 10:00pm every night and continued the work till 4:30am the next morning with the aim to fill all the potholes along the three-kilometre-road so that people, who use the road regularly, doesn't have to face any trouble while travelling.

While talking, Shaheen said they decided to conduct the work at night to avoid the daytime traffic and not to disrupt vehicular movement.