Shas­tri Boodan

The Fe­lic­i­ty Food­crop Farm­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion is call­ing on the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to re­pair a col­laps­ing bridge along the Fe­lic­i­ty/Wa­ter­loo Con­nec­tor Road in Ch­agua­nas.

As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent De­bideen Man­ick yes­ter­day said ero­sion around the south­ern end of the bridge, which first be­gan ex­pe­ri­enc­ing struc­tur­al is­sues in June, had wors­ened in the last few months be­cause of ex­ces­sive rain­fall.

He said sev­er­al years ago, a sim­i­lar prob­lem was ex­pe­ri­enced on the north­ern edge of the bridge and the Min­istry of Works had stepped in to rec­ti­fy the prob­lem.

How­ev­er, Man­ick said the ero­sion is now tak­ing place so fast that farm­ers are get­ting wor­ried. He said the bridge con­nects scores of farm­ers from Wa­ter­loo, Fe­lic­i­ty and Cou­va and is crit­i­cal to the pro­duc­tion and trans­porta­tion of crops.

Oth­er farm­ers said they have been plead­ing to the au­thor­i­ties for but their cries are falling on deaf ears.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed said he has been re­ceiv­ing calls from con­cerned farm­ers about the ero­sion. Mo­hammed said he plans to vis­it the area with a tech­ni­cal team to see if the bor­ough can ren­der any as­sis­tance. How­ev­er, he claimed the road is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the Min­istry of Works.

He said, “I would be send­ing a cor­re­spon­dence to the min­istry re­quest­ing as­sis­tance to get this re­paired. The area is im­por­tant to farm­ers and to the de­vel­op­ment of agri­cul­ture.”

The south­ern end of the bridge start­ed erod­ing in June and this wors­ened around mid-Au­gust.

Con­tact­ed on the com­plaint yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sin­i­nan said the road was not a main road but an agri­cul­tur­al con­nec­tor road which fell un­der the re­mit of the bor­ough cor­po­ra­tion and not his min­istry. How­ev­er, he said they had al­so re­ceived a re­port on the in­ci­dent and will send a team out for an as­sess­ment to­day.