The ferry service on the Aricha-Kajirhat route has been suspended since Friday night again as water in the River Jamuna continues to decrease rapidly.
According to the Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation鈥檚 Aricha regional office, the ferry service was halted at about 11:00pm on Friday.
Following poor navigability and ongoing dredging works, the corporation decided to temporarily stop the service.
Till filling of this report at 6:00pm on Saturday the service was not resumed.
People, especially long-route transport workers, suffered as they became stranded in the terminal areas.
The transport workers are advised to use alternative routes.
For the past few days, lack of navigability crisis is disrupting the service.
Earlier, the ferry service on the Aricha-Kajirhat route remained closed for around 37 hours between November 1 and November 3 due to poor navigability.
Just after five days, the BIWTC was forced to stop the ferry service again.
BIWTC Aricha Terminal manager Abu Abdullah said, 鈥楧ue to the navigability crisis, the ferry service has been suspended since Friday.鈥�
鈥楩erries will remain closed until the channel conditions are improved,鈥� he added.
Locals alleged that even after dredging by six dredgers for more than three months at a cost of crores of taka, the ferry service could not be maintained on the route.
BIWTC officials said that usually it required nine to 10 feet depth of water to operate ferries while currently the depth of water was six to seven near Aricha, putting the ferry service at risk.
As the river continued to recede rapidly, the channel became narrower.
Hamid Ali, a truck driver who was stranded at the Aricha terminal, said that the river route was one of the easiest and comfortable means of communication between north and western regions.聽
He also said that he came to the terminal on Friday evening from Narayanganj to go to Rajshahi and was waiting for the ferry till 11:30am on Saturday.
鈥榃e use this route as it is comfortable and easy to travel,鈥� he said, adding that now he would face a lot of troubles.
