No respite for people from tailbac

Special traffic drive in capital costs Tk 1,00,000 a day
The communications ministry has sought Tk 19,00,000 from the finance ministry to pay the expenses to be incurred during the first 20 days of the ongoing special drive for improvement of the city’s traffic situation.
Nearly Tk 7,50,000 as rent for 25 micro-buses hired each day, allowance of Tk 1,000 per day for each magistrate and Tk 300 per day for each traffic sergeant are some of the costs included in the fund sought, said sources in the ministry.
The special drive was launched on August 24 to rid the city-dwellers of severe traffic congestion during the month of Ramadan. The drive is scheduled to continue throughout the holy month.
A senior finance ministry official said that about Tk 1,00,000 per day had been spent for the drive although it had not brought about any major improvement in the city’s traffic.
People are still suffering because of congestion caused by lack of space for the movement of too many motorised and non-motorised vehicles. Besides, faulty automatic signals and constant violation of traffic rules remain the other major causes.
The coordinator of the special drive, Shafique Alam Mehdi, also additional secretary of the communications ministry, admitted that traffic management had not improved although it had not deteriorated any further.
This [no further deterioration] is the major achievement of the special drive despite limited resources and logistics, he told New Age.
Some 699 cases were filed and Tk 5,60,450 was realised as fine by the mobile courts, while 23 unfit vehicles were dumped until August 31 by the special drive.
The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and Dhaka Metropolitan Police have intensified checking of invalid documents and unfit vehicles.
Mehdi said they had made some recommendations, both short- and long-term, to the government. He hoped that the city’s traffic management would improve if the recommendations were executed.
Among the short-term remedies the committee recommended changes in the schools’ and offices’ timings and continuation of the special drive at a meeting with HT Imam, one of the prime minister’s advisers.
Mehdi also informed New Age that the communications ministry had taken over the responsibility of constructing six over-passes in level crossings in the capital from the Dhaka City Corporation.
The level crossings are said to be one of the major impediments against smooth movement of vehicles in key points of the capital like the Staff Road at Banani, and the intersections at Sonargaon, Maghbazar, Malibagh, Jurain and Syedabad.

Courtesy of NewAgebd