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Voters want their problems solved

Pankaj Karmakar, from Comilla
Fed up with waterlogging, traffic jams, drug problems, mugging, pollution, land grabbing and the sliding law and order, people of Comilla city hope a new mayor would do something about their problems.
But familiar faces are in the race for Comilla City Corporation polls and most do not have a “clean image”, said voters yesterday. People, who were at the helm of Comilla municipality, now a city corporation, had made lots of pledges but did little for the people, alleged the city dwellers.
Sheer negligence of people's representatives, indifference of law enforcers to their duties and lack of awareness of people are the main reasons for Comilla city descending to what it has become, they said.
Most parts of the city go under water after the lightest of rains, said Prof Ameer Ali Chowdhury, former principal of Comilla Victoria Government College.
“Many people's representatives and their allies have occupied the drainage system by constructing illegal structures,” he said.
“I find no eligible and competent candidate as all of them have a bad image. But I will have to choose one
of them,” said Ameer.
Talking about traffic jams, Ali Akbar Masum, secretary of Shushashoner Jonno Nagorik (Sujan) Comilla city unit, said no new roads were built in the last 20 years but the population has doubled. That is the main reason for terrible traffic jams.
Around 8,000 Easy-Trikes (battery-run vehicles) ply the city streets but around 3,000 of them are actually registered, he said.
“I hope the new mayor gives easing traffic jams his top most priority," Masum said.
Shop owner Azahar Miah however was of the opinion that the drug problem should be the new mayor's top priority. He claimed that about 70 percent of the youths in Comilla are addicted to Phensidyle, a cough syrup made in India and smuggled into
Bangladesh.
“Drugs are available here as the city is located close to the border,” he said.
Tea-stall owner Faisal Miah claimed that the law and order situation is getting worse day-by-day.
“At least one or two incidents of mugging have become a norm every night. The new mayor should prioritise maintaining law and order,” he said.
Talking to The Daily Star, Mohammad Shaheen, a restaurant employee, said the city dwellers are suffering for the faulty waste management.
“Skips are left here and there. The garbage pick-up is not regular and sometimes trash is left there for days making the environment unbearable," he said, adding, “The new mayor should give due importance to garbage management.”