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Fitness farce
FROM PAGE 1
“It is a hassle to take my car to the BRTA office. So, I give Tk 3,000 to a broker and he manages the fitness clearance for me,” said one of the vehicle owners requesting not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
Although the number of vehicles has increased manifold in the last few years, the headcount of staffers, including vehicle inspectors, who play a major role in giving fitness clearance, has remained almost the same.
A low number of vehicles are tested at the Vehicle Inspection Centre at Dhaka’s Mirpur office, with the majority tested manually by inspectors. At present, 120 inspectors are struggling to ensure fitness for tens of thousands of vehicles.
As a result, there are long queues of vehicles every day for fitness certificates.
“So, many car owners want to avoid the hassle through brokers,” said an official wishing not to be named.
In fiscal 2020-21, they checked the fitness of 6.75 lakh vehicles.
As of January, more than 5 lakh registered vehicles were on the road without a fitness certificate.
Contacted, BRTA Chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder said they have given strong directives upon all field offices not to give fitness certificates without inspecting vehicles at the BRTA office.
Even after the strong directive, Toha went ahead and signed off on the vehicle’s fitness without getting anywhere near it.
“So, we have taken immediate and stern action against him,” he told The Daily Star yesterday.
He was suspended and closed at the BRTA headquarters, as per an order on Thursday.
Recently, a vehicle inspector was suspended and departmental action was taken against two staffers of BRTA’s Circle office at Ekuria following the same allegation.
“We are trying our best to prevent such incident and already given a strong message to all officials said stern action would be taken if anyone found involved in such incident,” Mazumder added.

Odessa port
FROM PAGE 12
Oleg Nikolenko said Russia would bear “full responsibility for deepening the global food crisis” if the assault jeopardised the agreement.
The first major accord between the countries since the February invasion of Ukraine aims to ease the “acute hunger” that the United Nations says faces an additional 47 million people because of the war.
Hostility between Moscow and Kyiv had spilled over into Friday’s signing ceremony in Istanbul -- delayed briefly by disputes about the display of flags around the table and Ukraine’s refusal to put its name on the same document as the Russians.
Ukraine had entered the ceremony by bluntly warning that it would conduct “an immediate military response” should Russia violate the agreement and attack its ships or stage an incursion around its ports.
The two sides eventually inked separate but identical agreements in the presence Guterres and Erdogan at Istanbul’s lavish Dolmabahce Palace.
Guterres, moments before the signing, hailed the agreement as “a beacon of hope”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky later said the responsibility for enforcing the deal would fall to the United Nations, which along with Turkey is a co-guarantor of the agreement.
The agreement includes points on running Ukrainian grain ships along safe corridors that avoid known mines in the Black Sea.
Thousands of people have been killed and millions displaced from their homes since Russia invaded its pro-Western neighbour on February 24.
Huge quantities of wheat and other grain have also been blocked in Ukrainian ports by Russian warships and landmines Kyiv has laid to avert a feared amphibious assault.
Zelensky said that around 20 million tonnes of produce from last year’s harvest and the current crop would be exported under the agreement, estimating the value of Ukraine’s grain stocks at around $10 billion.
Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told Kremlin state media he expected the deal to start working “in the next few days” although diplomats expect grain to only start fully flowing by mid-August.
The United States and Britain hailed the accord but urged Moscow to abide by its rules.
The ornate halls of Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace felt far removed from east Ukraine’s Donbas war zone on another day of relentless shelling across the front.
Russia is trying to fight deeper into the war zone’s Donetsk region after securing full control of neighbouring Lugansk.
Russian missile strikes on railway infrastructure and a military airfield in the central area of Kirovograd yesterday killed at least three people and wounded 16 more, regional governor Andriy Raikovych said.
On Friday, the United States signed off on another $270 million in military aid to Ukraine, including rocket systems, artillery ammunition and armoured command posts.