Dhaka City Corporation has set aside only one area in the city where cars are lawfully allowed to park whilst one indoor car park with a capacity to hold 1,500 cars remains unfinished though it was supposed to have opened five years ago.
Chief town planner of DCC Mohammad Sirajul Islam told New Age that there are two types of car parking systems in the capital—one on-street parking and the other off-street parking.
‘At present we have only one on-street car parking area which is located at the south gate of New Market,’ he said.
While visiting New Market, your correspondent found people selling tickets inscribed ‘Vehicle parking by Dhaka City Corporation at Dhaka New Market Complex (inside-outside)’ which cost Tk 10.
One Ruhul Amin told New Age that he was appointed to sell the tickets by DCC and that there were about 30 people engaged in the work.
Although the car parking space is only authorised at the south gate of New Market they were selling tickets in front of all the gates.
A corporation employee
said that earlier there were two other car parking areas in Dilkusha and Gulshan, but that in 2006 the corporation withdrew them ‘after receiving a letter from the traffic division of Dhaka Metropolitan Police.’
‘But if you go to that area now you will see that even two or three cars are parked side by side in front of places like Purbani Hotel and Sonali Bank,’ he said.
He alleged that car parking was taking place in front of the Motijheel thana itself. ‘Why the DMP don’t take action against unauthorised car parking right in front of a police station,’ he asked.
Kamal Hossain, assistant commissioner of DMP Motijheel zone (traffic), told New Age that a chaotic situation had been created when the corporation allocated car parking space in Dilkusha area in 2006.
‘Too many cars came to the parking space and if they were asked not to enter the space they would say they had bought tickets from DCC,’ he said.
Kamal Hossain said that every day about 8,500 vehicles entered Motijheel area and those were parked all over the place.
He said it was very difficult to take action against all those vehicles.
‘If we take action to remove the cars from a particular place, they just move to other places,’ he added.
The DCC town planner said that to monitor the illegal car parking his department badly needed a separate police force.
Islam added that apart from the one on-street car park area, two off-street car parks located in under-construction buildings at Motijheel and Dilkusha had been planned. But they were yet to materialised.
Mohammad Sirajul Islam said the first eight floors of a building in the Motijheel area, would be used to park about 1,500 cars and was supposed to have opened in 2006.
‘I do not know why this centre is not open yet while Motijheel area is facing serious traffic congestion,’ he said
The DCC town planner said that another car park on Dilkusha road was yet to be opened.
Meanwhile Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakhha chairman Mohammad Nurul Huda said the authority was taking action against building owners who did not keep a provision of car parks in their buildings.
‘We started to operate a mobile court against these building owners and started imposing fines on them a month ago,’ he said.
-With New Age input
