Traffic Jam is a cry in the wilderness to the government of Bangladesh

Dulal Pattak January 12, 2010

Dulal Pattak, Dhaka, Bangladesh:

Traffic jam is a common phenomenon in our country especially in Dhaka city, one of the mega cities in the world. It is not a problem now-a-days rather it is more than a problem because problem has some solutions that traffic jam has not. Time is the most valuable things in the twenty first centaury no doubt. And traffic jam is killing the most productive time of the people of Dhaka city. Time is going on and on and we are lagging behind. The world is becoming speedy where as we are becoming slower. There are several causes behind this. What are the main causes behind it? A student named Monojit Roy of Dhaka University was saying that he has to go to Mohammadpur from Jagannath Hall for tuition in the afternoon. He usually comes back to hall at 9 pm and has to face a severe jam. Actually, the distance between two places needs only 20 minutes if there is no jam. But it is a matter of great regret that he needs to expense 2 hours or sometimes more than it to come back. He also said that he would be able to do more tuition if jam did not kill too much time. A rickshaw puller was saying that fare is too high in Dhaka due to traffic jam because if there were no jam they would carry more passengers in the killed time. In fact, everybody is losing their most valuable productive time for it. The sufferings of common people before the occasion of Eid, Durgapuja etc are beggar description. A good many numbers of labor are being lost in the jam. These labor hours can contribute a lot to the national economy if these lost hours are used in production. Private cars are the main culprit here. It is a common scenario that in morning and evening the jam becomes bad to worse. Student pressure is another vital reason for traffic jam because kindergartens, schools, private universities and coaching centers are growing like tadpole in Dhaka city. In the morning, the guardian of a child is using private car for going to its educational institution. We see thousands of private cars are being used only for this purpose and creating a huge jam. But if a school or college ensures bus for the students and stuff, this pressure will be lessened. Like this big organizations with a huge stuff or workers may use its own buss for stuff. Although this big problem has a great effect on our social life and national economy, No government has been seen to take a major project to update it.

Steps taken by government to control traffic jam.

1. Every school and college must ensure their student and stuff bus.

2. No private car will be used by students for going to school, colleges and universities.

3. An efficient transportation system must be ensured for common people for going to office, companies and markets etc.

4. Traffic rules for all should be the same.

5. The traffic police must be trained properly.

6. We all have to be very much attentive to the traffic signals.

7. The road should not be blocked for a long time for the ministers and high officials.

8. Public awareness has to be telecasted through mass media.

9. Rail way communication has to be developed for minimizing the transportation load. Many rail roads like Jessore-Goalanda have been damaged and stopped communication for a long time.

10. Railway sector is more or less corrupted. That’s why this sector can be privatized by taking proper steps because private ownership ensures efficiency and comparatively moderate corruption.

11. Old and out of date busses should be replaced.

12. Rickshaw pullers must be properly guided to drive well so that jam does not occur.

We do hope our elected government will do something for it. We also hope that government will check the unfit vehicles and over loading problem to minimize the accident and save valuable life at the time of Eid, Puja etc.