Editorial
An unending predicament
Need to set definite timelines for road works
City roads strewn with potholes and ditches, big and small, are a source of constant agony for the road users. The Meradia main road, which is under some development work for the last eight months, is a glaring instance of callousness and sloth on the part of the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC). To all appearances, the road looks abandoned by the authorities concerned, while officially excavation work is going on for placing the storm sewers to relieve the road of the curse of waterlogging. But to the dismay of the residents of the locality and the daily road users, it is the ditches dug and the cement pipes scattered haphazardly on the road that are the real source of their suffering.
Unfortunately, the Meradia road is but the tip of the iceberg when one takes the entire area of the Metropolitan Dhaka and the roads crisscrossing it into consideration. In fact, similar spectacles of pitiful road conditions are but a rule rather than an exception. And the administrations that come and go have been sitting on this problem indefinitely.
But what is the use of all these so-called works on the roads if those turn into a living hell for the road users? And it is not only the difficulty in movement that roads thus put into disuse by the so-called works cause; the cost of living of the residents of the localities through which those roads pass as well as of the regular commuters also rise.
The Executive Engineer in charge of the zone under which the sewer installation work is in progress at Meradia, however, explained the technical reasons for the delay in completing the task. But what remains to be explained is: what alternatives have been kept for the commuters and the general public during the period when such an important communication link is closed to the traffic and especially, when such work entail inordinate delays?
The authorities, therefore, need to seriously look into this aspect of public suffering when undertaking such work on busy roads of the city. And in case, any alternative route for the traffic is hard to find, then the authorities must be more careful in setting the timeline for completing the job, so that the road users may at least brace themselves for difficulty for a predictable time period.
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