Bangladesh News

Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina yesterday expressed disappointment over the failure of the authorities concerned in easing the city’s traffic congestion despite repeated instructions over the last one year.

Presiding over the regular cabinet meeting at the Secretariat, she said she had been repeatedly asking the home and communications ministries and other bodies concerned to take measures and work in coordination to ease traffic jam.

“But she was very unhappy as there was no progress in this regard. The prime minister held the home and communications ministries responsible for this,” said a cabinet minister.

Communications Minister Syed Abul Hossain, however, tried to defend himself blaming the increasing number of vehicles.

Refuting the excuse, Hasina said, “Lack of management among you is responsible for the situation.”

She said, “Had there been proper management, the situation would have been different.”

“The directives in this regard ended as rhetoric,” a literally annoyed Hasina told her colleagues, asking how thousands of banned 20-year-old vehicles ply the city streets despite frequent drives against them.

She asked the Police Department and Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) to stop malpractice immediately.

Hasina also expressed her frustration over the failure to construct flyovers at six risky level crossings in the city. She asked the communications minister to take up the responsibility and construct the overpasses immediately.

The sites chosen for the overpasses are Moghbazar, FDC (Hatirjheel), Staff Road of Dhaka Cantonment, Malibagh, Jurain, and Saidabad level crossings. The decision came after a speeding train rammed into a bus at Moghbazar level crossing, leaving eight people severely injured on June 17.

A number of ministers also maintained that there is a serious lack of coordination among the ministries concerned and the institutions responsible for implementing measures to ease traffic congestion.