RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The morn­ing com­mute for some Bar­rack­pore stu­dents was dis­rupt­ed on Mon­day when res­i­dents blocked Rees Road to high­light de­te­ri­o­rat­ing road con­di­tions. 

Pupils were un­able to get to the Bar­rack­pore Vedic and AS­JA pri­ma­ry schools as from round 7 am res­i­dents piled up old tires on the road, set them on fire and staged a plac­ard protest to high­light the di­lap­i­dat­ed con­di­tion of the road.

Res­i­dent Naz Mo­hammed said near­by roads are equal­ly bad and the protest was their last re­sort as they had writ­ten many let­ters but got no re­spons­es.

 “We, the res­i­dents of Bar­rack­pore, are peo­ple too, and we are ask­ing for a fair share of the pie,” he shout­ed.

Res­i­dents voiced their dis­con­tent with cries of “We fed up! Fix the road now!”

Mo­hammed added: “We have been pa­tient for too long. Bar­rack­pore has 25 oil-pro­duc­ing wells right here in Jaipauls­ingh and all we are ask­ing is that part of the rev­enue comes back to our com­mu­ni­ty.”

Sama­r­ali Ali, echo­ing sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, de­clared: “We have had enough of this road. We are fed up with the bad con­di­tions.” 

He said stu­dents and staff of a pri­ma­ry school lo­cat­ed a short dis­tance away re se­ri­ous­ly af­fect­ed by the road con­di­tions as ve­hi­cles en­counter dif­fi­cul­ty nav­i­gat­ing the many pot­holes. 

“Since I know my­self for 35 years now this road has not been paved and we are fed up. This is the worse road in the coun­try.”Ayana Daniel said. 

“We want a prop­er road,” she added. 

Coun­cil­lor Raf­fie Mo­hammed said thou­sands of peo­ple use Rees Road. 

“I sym­pa­thize with the peo­ple be­cause this is not the on­ly bad road in this area. We have GP Road, St Croix Road al­so in need of re­pairs,” he said.

Works Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan was con­tact­ed for com­ment but up to press time, there was no re­sponse.