Eight years on, Ctg’s Oxygen-Quaish road in ruins amid standoff between govt agencies

For eight years, the five-kilometre stretch linking Oxygen to Quaish in Chattogram has been caught in a quiet administrative standoff between Chattogram Development Authority (CDA) and Chattogram City Corporation (CCC), with no clear transfer of responsibility and no effective maintenance, slowly breaking apart in between.

What remains is less a road than a record of neglect. Asphalt and concrete have given way to craters that flood during the monsoon, causing accidents, stalled vehicles and gridlock. In the dry season, dust from the broken surface settles over homes and shops alike. 

For those who use it, there is no escape from this cycle. Driver Mohammad Hannan describes it as a daily struggle with the road itself – vehicles breaking down repeatedly, parts loosening under constant vibration, and bodies absorbing the strain of every journey.

“Because of the constant jolting, we have to take painkillers regularly, and many drivers are developing heart-related problems,” he said.

This is no forgotten backstreet. The road links northern Chattogram with Hathazari, Raozan, Fatikchhari, and the hill districts of Rangamati and Kaptai. Evercare Hospital and more than ten institutions – English-medium schools, government primary schools, madrasahs, and Quaish Burishchar Sheikh Mohammad City Corporation College – line the corridor, which also connects to the Dhaka-Chattogram Highway via the Oxygen intersection and the Bayezid Link Road.

Muradur Rahman Babar, who travelled from Mominbag Residential Area to Evercare Hospital for treatment, said the road was in extremely poor condition, making travel difficult for ordinary users and even more so for critically ill patients. 

Another regular commuter, Muhammad Ali, said the road is in a severely damaged state, with vehicles unable to move properly, forcing residents to endure year-round hardship.

How the deadlock took hold

CDA built the road under its Ananya Residential Project at a cost of Tk45 crore. Construction began in 2013, was completed in December 2015, and was formally inaugurated in January 2016.  

Nearly a decade on, the handover to the city corporation remains incomplete, and maintenance has lapsed entirely. In 2018, Wasa cut through sections to lay pipelines. CDA patched the damage, but those repairs marked the start of a slow unravelling.

CDA sent two formal letters asking the city corporation to take over. Both were refused. Secretary Ashraful Amin was direct: regulations require any handover to be made in a fully repaired condition, and this road falls far short. 

“Not only the road itself, but the adjacent drains have also been damaged. Under these circumstances, it is not possible to accept the road,” he said, adding that taking it over now would cost as much as rebuilding from scratch.

A five-member joint committee was formed to break the impasse. In January, it submitted its recommendations. The city corporation’s stance was unambiguous. CDA must either fully reconstruct the road or transfer the equivalent cost before any handover.

Patchwork fixes and promises of permanence

On a recent Saturday near Pobel Academy, workers moved between potholes with a truck and crane, filling damaged sections with bricks and sand. Worker Abu Bakar Siddique called it emergency relief, not restoration – enough to keep traffic moving for roughly 15 days, no more.

Residents remain sceptical. Md Didar of Talukdar Super Shop said earlier repairs had failed within days. “Because of the rain, the situation is the same again, and the potholes have resurfaced. Instead of repeatedly wasting money, the authorities should undertake proper permanent work.”

CDA Chairman Md Nurul Karim did not dispute the failure. “Because the handover process remained pending for so long, the road effectively became orphaned,” he said. Wasa’s pipeline work left CDA without compensation; it could have recovered under city jurisdiction. 

With no dedicated maintenance fund, the authority has been drawing on ‘Junction Development’ allocations just to patch potholes.

Talks with the Chattogram mayor have produced a tentative plan: CDA will make the road passable, hand it over to CCC, and the corporation will begin full reconstruction after the monsoon. For commuters, patients and students, that promise still hangs over a road that has already waited too long.