No trees will be cut to upgrade Jessore-Benapole road

No harm will be done to the hundred-year-old trees by the historic Jessore-Benapole road which is now being upgraded to four lanes.

Thousands of Bengali refugees used the road to flee to India from torture by Pakistani forces during the 1971 Liberation War.

American poet Allen Ginsberg later famously signified the event with his poem ‘September on Jessore Road’.

The Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges recently approved a project and asked the authorities not to cut any tree in the process, according to the Jessore unit of Roads and Highways Department or RHD.

“We have received orders from the ministry to rebuild the highway. We hope to float tenders soon,” said Mehedi Iqbal, Executive Engineer at Jessore RHD.

The project is worth around Tk 3.28 billion.

The 38-km highway runs from Doratana to Benapole check post. There are two lanes up to 35.89 km until Benapole zero point and four lanes in the rest 2.31 km. The road will be extended up to three kilometres on each side.

Local residents and MPs started a campaign in 2015 to protect the 2,312 trees along the road that were in danger of being felled for the implementation of the project.

bdnews24.com carried a report on the campaign the same year.

Awami League MP Sheikh Afil Uddin (Jessore-1) has described the government’s decision as “realistic and people-friendly.”

“The Bangladeshi refugees took shelter under these trees during the Liberation War. So we need to preserve them at any cost,” MP Monirul Islam Monir from Jessore-2 constituency told bdnews24.com.

He described the trees as “witnesses to history".

Freedom fighter Sirajul Hoque Monju, Chairman of Sharsha Upazila Parishad, has demanded renaming the Jessore-Benapole highway to ‘Jessore Road.’

A zamindar named Kali Prasanna Ray, known as Kali Poddar to locals, constructed the road around 200 years ago.

“In 1840, he started construction of the 80-km road stretching from Bokchor in Jessore to Nadia’s Gangaghat in India. Thousands of labourers worked under his supervision day and night and finished the construction by 1842,” said the MP.

“The road was known as Jessore Road before liberation. In India, it is still known by that name.”

Relevant ministries had been asked to remove utility poles from the road, Mehedi Iqbal from the RHD in Jessore said.