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Alleviation brooks no delay

Suffocating traffic jam

One of the principal reasons for the unacceptable traffic jams is bad planning of city roads. For the Jast two decades, governments, have been trying, various methods of solving.the traffic problems. No appreciable improvement could be made. Instead, the situation is deteriorating rapidly. Patchwork cannot reduce the suffering of the people.

A.B.M.S. Zahur
THE city of Dhaka is one of the most densely populated and poorly planned cities in the world. With a population of over 12 million it does not have enough parks, car parking spaces, open spaces, playgrounds, roads (particularly east-west) etc. Compared to even some less developed cities of Africa our civic facilities are not enough.
Dhaka is a 400 years old city, and was once considered attractive. With the growth and development of the city of Kolkata it started losing glamour. However, it started regaining its importance with the creation of Pakistan, as one of its provincial metropolises. It became the capital of Bangladesh after independence in 1971.
Though a capital development authority was set up - the Dhaka Improvement Trust (an autonomous body under department of local government and rural development) - it could not fulfil the objective to a satisfactory level It tried to compromise with the original master plan because it had to face challenges from the then influential persons (e.g. Green Road was to have the width of 150 feet but it had to be settled at only 60 feet).
A Greek town-planning firm was engaged to prepare a master planfor the city in 1950. But it was neither a reputed firm nor did it have adequate experience. As such, it failed to come up with a quality master plan. Moreover, no one could envisage that Dhaka would become such a big city in less than six decades Thus, we face so many civic problems. In fact, due to unplanned industrialisation, poor city plan, and influx of rural population, it has become extremely challenging for concerned authorities to cope with the problems.
Since 1947, little attention was paid to development of Dhaka from the level of a provincial town to that of a city of intema-tional standard. Though Dhaka Improvement Trust (DIT) was converted into an Authority and named Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipaksha (Rajuk) in 1987 for rapid development of the city the organisation could not fulfil its objective due the following factors: (a) Wrong transfer of the organisation from the ministry of local government to the ministry of public works; (b) Lack of technically qualified personnel in the organisation; (c) Neither the ministry of public works nor Rajuk showed any interest in preparing a master plan for Dhaka city.
One of the principal reasons for the unacceptable traffic jams is bad planning of city roads. For the last two decades, governments have been trying various methods of solving the traffic problems.
Even assistance of the armed forces was taken. No appreciable improvement could be made. Instead, the situation is deterioratingrapidly. By now, the authorities concerned must be aware of the fact that patchwork cannot reduce the suffering of the people.
What is needed is adopting short and long-term measures to obviate the difficul -ties. The following short term measures are
proposed: (a) transferring Rajuk from the ministry of public works to the ministry of local government and rural development; (btwo or three timings for opening and closing of city schools;(c) shifting of the headquarters of certain autonomous bodies from Dhaka to appropriate divisional headquarters; (d) shifting the old secretariat to a new secretariat complex and accommodating all head offices of
attached and subordinate offices in the old secretariat complex as early as possible; (e) demolishing unauthorised structures; (f) evicting illegal pavement occupiers;, (g) constructing more flyovers and underpasses; (h) imposing restriction on construction of high-rise buildings; (i) allowing right turn in certain crossings; (j) converting four-way crossings into two-way crossings; (k) establishing sub-control rooms at traffic signal points instead of automatic signal system; (1) withdrawing jalopies and more than 20-year old vehicles from the streets; and. (m) marking separate lanes for motorised and nonmotorised vehicles where possible.
With the implementation of short term measures for easing traffic jams the government should start work on long-term planning simultaneously to avoid greater problems in future. It is heartening to know that the percent government is considering taking up a project for underground railway for the city ofDh aka.
The problem of traffic jam is getting worse at an alarming rate. Already, it is affecting our economic and social life. Thus, the need for solution of the problem brooks no further delay.
AB M S.Zahuf is a former Jont Secretary.