Eid travel risky as ever

THIS year, like so many previous years, promises have been made to countrymen that travel to home districts by road, rail and waterways will be nearly as smooth as silk. Yet, as luck would have it, highways heading out of the city have been patched up with bricks that have already started to crack, unfit passenger launches have received a fresh paint job that will inevitably ply the rivers grossly overloaded and chances of getting a train ticket in time will be akin to winning the lottery. Such is the lot for the 7million or so city residents who will be headed out of Dhaka around Eid-ul-Azha.

Concerned authorities have been routinely promising the impossible. Our question is, why bother making promises that are not kept? Given the state of accountability in the land, with accidents occurring on roads and waterways ten-a-penny and with little recourse to justice for the victims and their families, that many passengers will not reach their destinations unscathed has become the norm. Looking beyond the usual dangers that such journeys involve due to badly maintained communication links, there is the added annoyance of haphazard placement of cattle markets all over the city, contributing to an already existing chaotic traffic congestion in Dhaka. The woes of city dwellers trying to make it home to spend some quality time with their families during this holy festival are compounded each year but their trials and tribulations fall on deaf ears of authorities. Adding to hardships during festivities can only be a cruel joke.