LET us hope that the construction work of Jatrabari-Gulistan flyover is completed soon. Nobody is sure when it is going to end, and with that mark the end of public suffering of unbelievable magnitude.
The importance of the flyover, the biggest so far undertaken in the country, cannot be over-emphasised. It is expected to play a vital role in ensuring free flow of traffic to and from Dhaka city.
The fly-over will surely be considered as one of the significant contributions of the present government towards easing the unbearable traffic congestion at the entrance of the city.
But does that mean that the government machinery which is responsible for implementation of the project will remain totally indifferent towards making an alternate arrangement for the reasonably safe and easy movement of traffic through the area by by-passing the flyover from either side?
Does it mean that they will keep on taking a ‘couldn’t care less’ attitude towards the safety and comfort of the people traveling by road over this area? It is probably high time we got some acceptable answers to these questions from the authorities concerned.
The so called by-passes on either side of the flyover may be called anything but roads fit for traffic movement. To put it politely, they are badly damaged, dilapidated and plagued with innumerable potholes bad enough to endanger safety of vehicles, not to mention the congestion, chaos, time loss and physical as well as mental suffering of the passengers.
Jatrabari crossing, Jatrabari-Gulistan runway (!) to be precise, is nowadays possibly the biggest hurdle one has to overcome if one has to make a journey by road through that area. The situation is worse when the roads are inundated by rainfall, leaving everything open for anybody to get trapped with his vehicle on the damaged roads.
Only the other day I had the fortune or misfortune of going through such a scenario. I was coming from Brahmanbaria in a car. It took me 7 hours from Brahmanbaria to Gulistan — 4 hours from Brahmanbaria to Demra Bridge, 1 hour from Demra Bridge to Jatrabari crossing and another 2 hours from Jatrabari crossing to Gulistan.
As the Jatrabri road had gone under water because of a little bit of rain, it took no time after crossing the Jatrabari traffic signal for my car to get trapped in one of the pot-holes for at least fifteen minutes before some helpful passers-by came and rescued me. And don’t make a mistake. This is not a rare phenomenon. It is almost a daily happening.
Who is to be blamed for this? Is it not because of sheer negligence of the authority concerned — be it the City Corporation, Roads and Highway Dept. or the construction company — that the people have to bear the agony of such a mess for day after day, month after month, year after year?
As a seafarer, I had the opportunity of visiting many big cities, but nowhere have I ever seen such a mess in traffic management. Nowhere have I seen so much neglect or indifference to public safety and comfort.
If the roads on either side of the fly-over could be kept smooth by carrying out patch-repair of the damaged areas and filling the potholes with bricks and stones on constant basis by an emergency damage repair team, and if some sort of traffic discipline could be maintained on the road by the traffic police, the scenario could have been altogether different.
The ruling party has suffered defeat in the city corporation elections of Sylhet, Rajshahi, Khulna and Barisal. The defeat may be due to many reasons, but can it be totally ruled out that their indifference to the day to day problems of the common people, especially of the urban population, played no less role in that debacle?
The government will be well advised to take a note of it and do the needful on urgent basis if they want to prove better in the upcoming elections.
The writer is a retied merchant navy officer. Email: himam55@yahoo.co.uk
Source: The Daily Star
