The miserable city
Every big city in the world has its own problem but there are none like Dhaka which has multiple problems and needs a miracle to overcome the shortcomings in the near future. Like everything else in Dhaka, the quality of life is fast deteriorating. At present looking around us one will notice Dhaka doesn't have any decent/modern facilities which the Dhaka dwellers can enjoy. The traffic, gas, electricity, drinking water sewerage and other utilities which are being provided by the government is fast deteriorating mainly due to mismanagement and non availability of modern equipments and corruption in these departments. What the government actually can do is stop supply of the natural gas as the country is already in scarcity of this fuel, if the supply to the CNG stations and for household use can be stopped through the pipe lines, the outcome will be excellent. Out of 1 million vehicles 80% will go off the road as soon the CNG is disallowed to be used as fuel for vehicles. Out of this 80%, half the vehicles will certainly stop plying on the roads as they are 20-30 years old which are dependent on CNG as the only form of fuel. Owners of these vehicles will certainly stop using these junks due to high Octane costs and consumption. This step sure will help the Dhaka city's traffic to reduce over night from the day this can be implemented by the government. The result will be tremendous as around 1.25 to 1.50 lakh vehicles will be seen plying on the present 7% roads the city has and will be having for the next 20 years. The gas which will be saved can be diverted (whatever we are left with) to the power plants which are now functioning par below the capacity. Once the power supply is ensured, the government and its think tank can concentrate on making roads and highways, flyovers, tunnels and footpaths of international standard. In the meantime they can start the widening of the city's ring roads by earth feeling and in the eastern side of Dhaka they can start the berribandh to stop the eastern side from flooding during the monsoon. This will help the city to have a circular road supported by a two way broad gauge rail road. Once all the gas fired power generation units are activated, the government will also have enough time to install the coal fired power stations as well as the high profile nuke power station for electricity generation. Again, it will need a miracle to shift different government and private offices outside the capital. But what can be done is the cantonment, the BRD headquarters, the Navy headquarters as well as Dhaka university should be reallocated for making rooms for construction of high rise residential buildings as well as roads for free flow of traffic for the over-populated Dhaka city. Dhaka cantonment can easily be shifted to the other side of Buriganga River, Dhaka University can be reallocated on the eastern side of Dhaka, the Navy H.Q. should be transferred to Chittagong and BDR can easily be shifted to Munshiganj which is only a few kilometres away from the port city of Narayanganj. With this mini decentralization life in the city will improve though it will not be significant but it will give some sort of relief to this over-populated city for the next 5-7 years if not a decade. The present government should immediately enact a law by forcing all the English medium and big public schools to provide school bus which will also reduce the number of vehicles commuting all over the city twice a day in the same route wasting valuable fuel and loss of man hours. If the residential areas can be separated from commercial and semi commercial activities the traffic madness all over these areas plus the main roads will also reduce as we've witnessed this during the zone wise weekly holidays declared by the government. I am sure there are experts on these issues and may be the government has plans for the future like the STP/MTPe.
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