People on both banks of the Butuni canal in Manikganj's Shibalay upazila depend on a roundabout dirt road because there is no bridge, and farm produce and raw materials travel 7 to 8 kilometres out of the way to reach the haats, Manab Zamin's Shibalay correspondent reports. After years of hardship, the upazila engineer's office says a proposal for a 10-metre bridge has been sent.
Residents want the bridge over the canal near Asma Begum's house beside Baro Butuni bazar in Butuni mouza; it would ease movement and get farm produce to market quickly. The 7-8 km of unpaved road becomes worse in the monsoon and raises farmers' production costs, they said, and even taking the dead to the graveyard across the canal is an ordeal.
Local representative Sobjel said applications for the bridge were made in fiscal 2022-23 and most recently on 15 November 2025; the site has been inspected several times without any effective step.
Upazila engineer Md Abdur Razzak said proposals have been submitted for many projects and that, following the application, a proposal has been sent under the bridge-construction project; he could not say when it was sent, and no estimated cost has been fixed.
Upazila nirbahi officer Manisha Rani Karmakar said she was not aware of the matter, and the upazila project implementation officer, Tahmina Akter Chowdhury, could not be reached for comment despite repeated visits and calls. For Butuni's farmers the bridge is a question of what an 8 km detour costs in the price and freshness of vegetables and crops between field and haat.
Source: Manab Zamin, Reporting: Shibalay (Manikganj) correspondent
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