The lack of enforcement by the authorities, especially by the traffic police, to keep unfit and unauthorised vehicles off the roads continues to create chaos on the city roads.
The unfit vehicles, including buses, trucks, pick-up trucks and private cars, are releasing black smoke, aggravating the pollution of the city鈥檚 already highly polluted air.聽
抖阴精品 reporter鈥檚 visits to the Dhaka roads on Friday found buses picking passengers standing middle of the roads, creating terrible traffic congestions, and unauthorised battery-run auto-rickshaws plying on major city roads.
Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association general secretary Saiful Islam acknowledged the fact of plying dilapidated buses on the city roads.
鈥榃e have sent letters to all bus owners and companies five days ago asking them to withdraw unfit and dilapidated buses from the city roads. We have given them one month ultimatum. If they don鈥檛 follow our instructions, we will recommend the traffic police take stern actions against those buses,鈥� Saiful told 抖阴精品 on Friday.
The association was against the running of unfit buses and environmental pollution by black smoke, he added.聽
The visits found scores of battery-run rickshaws plying on major city roads, including Azimpur, Dhanmondi, Ramna, Kakrail, Shyamoli and Kalyanpur areas.
According to the Dhaka Metropolitan Police, the traffic police took action against 6,500 buses and 50,000 battery-run rickshaws, while also seized some of the errant vehicles since September 22.
Its additional commissioner for traffic Khondaker Nazmul Hassan said that the lack of space constrained their capacity to keep seized vehicles.聽
鈥楳ost of the time we cut wires of auto-rickshaws and seize seats,鈥� he told 抖阴精品 on Friday.
Nazmul also called for action against the charging stations in the capital.
鈥楾he Power Division has to take action against charging stations. The police cannot do all the things,鈥� he said adding that a coordinated effort was urgent to tackle the situation.聽
Referring to the condition of Jatrabari roads, he said that the city corporations must repair the dilapidated roads in the capital to ease traffic congestions.
Many buses were seen picking passengers blocking roads around the Nilkhet crossing and in front of New Market, while private cars were seen parked on the roads narrowing the space for the moving traffic.聽
Nazmul, also the chief of the city鈥檚 traffic police department, blamed both individual road users and transport workers for the regular traffic chaos on the city roads.聽
The police force recently also complained about the want of mobile court drives by the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority on the city roads, contributing to the increasing chaos.
According to road transport authority officials, it runs 19 mobile courts all over the country of which eight, not having executive magistrates, remain non-functioning currently.
For the Dhaka division 10 mobile courts were designated of which four were running now, said road transport authority director for enforcement Mohammad Kamrul Islam Chowdhury.聽
鈥楩or the rest of the six we don鈥檛 have executive magistrates now,鈥� he added.
鈥榃e are conducting our mobile courts in a limited manner. Two more executive magistrates have been appointed for the Dhaka division, but they have yet to get the authorisation from the Ministry of Public Administration,鈥� said Kamrul.
On the day, the BRTA conducted two mobile courts in Dhaka division and one in Khulna and realised Tk 33,100 in 20 cases.
Dhaka Road Transport Coordination Authority executive director Neelima Akhter said that they were holding talks with stakeholders on solving the problem.
鈥楩or the public transport, we cannot remove all dilapidated buses or other public transport overnight. If such a move is taken, people will suffer the most,鈥� she said, adding that they also held meetings with the bus owners for introducing new buses under Dhaka Nagar Paribahan.
