Quader blames transport owners for failure

The drive against old ad unfit vehicles failed to achieve any success due to non-cooperation from some unscrupulous transport owners, Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader told the parliament yesterday.

Replying to lawmakers' queries, the minister said these vehicles had returned to city streets after the drive.

The government has banned 20-year-old buses and minibuses, and 25-year-old goods carrying vehicles in the capital. Besides, plying of trucks on Dhaka city streets has been banned during the daytime, the minister said.

He also said metropolitan police, and executive magistrates of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and District Administration are enforcing the ban by conducting mobile courts.

The mobile court filed 5,724 cases, realised Tk 68,74,030 as fine, sentenced 113 people to various jail terms and sent 280 vehicles to dumping stations between July 1, 2014 and this July 31.

In reply to another query, he said a total of 88 projects involving Tk 5,235.87 crore are now being implemented under the Annual Development Programme of the fiscal 2015-16 for maintenance, repair and development of the country's highways.