Residents of the capital city Dhaka on Monday experienced one of the worst traffic congestions in recent days. The nagging traffic jam in the city’s thoroughfares, a day after the half-day hartal on Sunday and weekend holidays on Friday and Saturday, held down the city-dwellers for hours on the streets and also caused immense sufferings to them. Though the traffic jam is a regular phenomenon in the city, it was worse yesterday at Motijheel and its surrounding areas apparently because of staging street rallies by the opposition political parties and citizen bodies. Other city streets – including Naya Paltan, Purana Paltan, Bijoy Nagar, Motijheel, Dilkusha, Shahbagh, Kakrail, Saidabad, Jatrabari, Farmgate, Mohakhali,Airport and some other areas had experienced severe traffic jam due to this. Vehicular traffic movement in these areas virtually came to a halt for more than hours, causing commuters, home-bound city dwellers and travellers of the long routes had to suffer a lot. Witness said many home-bound people including women and children were seen returning homes on foot. DMP officials said there was a heavy rush of clients at bank counters, not only for normal transactions but also for payment of gas, electricity and telephone bills, which exaggerated the traffic chaos. “Besides, educational institutions, shopping malls and other installations experienced more than normal rush on the day,” the officials said. The traffic congestion was partly reduced in the last few days due to some actions taken by the authority. But it has deepened sudden mainly because of changing the routes of rickshaws and long queues of CNG automobiles parked in front of the filling stations in different parts of the city, according to him.
-With The New Nation input
