The interim government has given training to 700 students on traffic management as part of its move to engage them in managing Dhaka’s traffic aimed at easing the vexing traffic jam.
“We’ve already trained 700 students on traffic management. Some of them have already been deployed in different parts of the capital city to manage traffic,” Home Adviser Lt. Gen. Md. Jahangir Alam Chowdhury (Retd.) told BSS in a recent interview at his office.
The students will work on the city streets for four hours as part time job during their leisure time, he said, adding that they would get honorium for that.
“We’ve taken Dhaka as a pilot project. If the deployment of students on the streets works properly in the capital city, we will replicate it in the other cities to manage traffic,” he said.
Talking to BSS at the office of the home adviser, Senior Secretary of Public Security Division Dr. Mohammad Abdul Momen stressed the need for increasing the number of road to ease the nagging traffic snarl.
“For a habitable city, 25 percent of its area should be made up of roads, but the Dhaka has not over 7.5 percent,” he said describe it one of the reasons of severe traffic jam in the capital city.
The chief adviser’s office has earlier formed a committee to check the nagging traffic jam in the capital city.
Dhaka Metropolitan Commissioner (DMP) Md Mainul Hassan held several meetings with the bus owners and sought cooperation from them and gave them some instructions to follow in containing traffic jam in the capital city.
He called upon the bus owners to prioritise traffic safety by avoiding practices such as operating unfit vehicles, stopping in the middle of the road to pick up or drop off passengers, and random parking.
“If we all work in unison sincerely, we can keep traffic congestion in the city manageable,” he added, assuring the bus owners that they are ready to extend any sort of cooperation to this end. The DMP has conducted drives against violation of traffic rules daily to bring discipline on the city streets.
