The traffic tangle in the Dhaka city shows no sign of improvement,
with the government initiatives going all in vain.
Residents from different areas, especially Farmgate, Mirpur, Motijheel, Dhanmondi, Jatrabari, Mouchak, Moghbazar, Rampura, Badda, Mahakhali, Banglamotor, Paltan and Gulshan, have to count extra hours being stuck on the road in tailbacks every day.
The situation becomes even worse ahead and after the office and educational institution hours.
Most of the projects including Mass Rapid Transit Line 6 with elevated metro railway as its main component, Bus Rapid Transit Project and construction of Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover, taken up with a view to easing traffic congestion inside Dhaka, have made very little impact.
After a long delay in laying out the final route of the Tk 21,985 crore metro rail because of its revision on an Armed Forces Division objection, the government on December 18 approved the project.
The communications minister Obaidul Quader said on Thursday that the proposal for appointing consultant to form detail design and construct metro rail would be sent to the ministerial committee on purchase this month.
The process to appoint consultants for the final design of 20-kolimetre Bus Rapid Transit route stretching from Shahjalal International Airport to Gazipur was in the last stage, he said, hoping that the transit’s foundation would be laid in July.
The finance minister, AMA Muhith, in his 2012-2013 fiscal year’s budget speech, said they hoped to complete within the next fiscal year the much expected Hatirjheel project to ease growing traffic congestion in the capital.
‘Construction of 10-km Mayor Mohammad Hanif Flyover from Jatrabari to Palashi and about 3-km Kuril flyover will be completed within 2012,’ he said.
According to the Hatirjheel project officials, traffic movement at Maghbazar, Madhubagh, Ulan, Mahanagar, Dasherpara, Rampura, Merul Badda, Gulshan, Tejgaon and Begunbari would improve once the project is completed.
Till now, passengers did not find any reason for feeling relieved of the nagging traffic congestion in the adjacent areas of the project.
About 82.5 per cent of the construction work of the Jatrabari flyover has been completed so far and several deadlines for opening the structure to traffic have already been missed, lastly on March 26.
Meanwhile, construction work of Kuril flyover is also going on. The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation in February 2012 suspended its water bus service on the circular waterway around Dhaka as it failed to attract the passengers and shifted to the Mawa-Char Janajat route.
BIWTC director (commercial) Ananda Chandra Biswas told New Age on May 4 that they would put into operation four new and two old waterbuses on the Sadarghat-Gabtoli route from May 15.
But the corporation is yet to start implementing their decision.
A Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority senior official said the second phase of dredging the circular waterway had started in 2008, which was scheduled to be completed by June 30 2012.
The authorities still have to remove 1.2 lakh cubic metres of soil from a 2km stretch of the 110-kilometre waterway, which was expected to be completed by June 30, said a senior officer recently.
According to the Bangladesh Railway no new rail line between Dhaka and other districts or no underground rail line has been constructed in the present government’s tenure.
-With New Age input
