Traffic congestion-free Dhaka
Just as I was getting ready to rebut your editorial entitled “Regulate the Number of Rickshaws” DS 22/5/08, I was overjoyed to read Prof Nasreen Khundker's excellent letter in DS 30/5/08. Prof Nasreen has totally dismantled the arguments in your editorial with cold logic, practical information, pragmatic points and solutions practiced in other developed countries. All this was written in impeccable English that was a joy to read. Her letter deserves to be weighed in gold and were it up to me, I would make it diamonds. She has said it all and it would be impertinent for me to add anything to it.
I will therefore confine myself to some comments on the article “Traffic Congestion-Free Dhaka, A Dream” by Mr M Showkat Ali ,in DS 29/05/08. Mr Showkat starts his article by rightly describing the various mega projects dreamt by the big-wigs of the previous governments, that can only belong to the realm of fantasy. He continues by prescribing some good and long overdue reforms like equitable distribution of Khas lands to local landless, setting up of industries in rural areas to benefit local employment and using local raw materials and de-centralizing administrative decision making that only adds to the congestion of people from all over Bangladesh in Dhaka. All these will certainly provide incentives for those who come to Dhaka to seek employment or redress and will discourage urban migration and the sprouting of slums AND RICKSHAWS.
Mr Showkat, has then sadly allowed himself to get entrapped in the anti-rickshaw lobby by calling for their “elimination” without paying any heed to the consequences. In this, the 18th letter written by me on the subject, I have already stated the immediate effect that would happen to nearly half the population of Dhaka whose livelihood either depends on the rickshaws or those who use them every day. He does not spare a thought to the millions of old, infirm, disabled, men, women, children, students, small traders who would become pedestrians on footpath-less, dark & pot-holed roads of Dhaka.
So please call a spade, a spade and try to bring forth worthwhile immediate solutions to rid Dhaka of its worst nightmare, the traffic jams. In most of my previous 17 letters, I have asserted that there is an easy solution for both mechanized and non-mechanized vehicles co-existing side by side, on the basis of existing laws and it only requires that they be implemented fairly and squarely without fear and favour.
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