Transport issue
Mahbubun Nabi's article on the subject published in your pages on 14 June is an interesting and pragmatic way to solve Dhaka's transport gridlock. More so it is not so capital intensive, can be done phase wise spread over a few years, without a large one time solution. It is indeed a very reasonable approach, which should be a lesson for our city planners and the people at the top. They should read, understand and implement the ideas put forward in the article.
For Dhaka, the solution need not be MRTs, elevated highways or flyovers.
The approach has little to do with communication, or road building and such high value infrastructure investment. The gamut of the solution lies in political and administrative decisions and its implications, without the usual endless debates which is our normal standard practice; resulting in nothing else but waste of time! We must seriously consider and adopt the proposed solution, and work at it with determination and commitment. It will I believe change the face of Dhaka forever, and make it a nicer place to live in!
If I rightly remember, Ershad had some ideas in these lines, of administrative decentralisation through the upazila concept. Sadly, our politicos who rule, or usually misrule the country to the best of their ability, could never accept the idea of decentralisation of power and authority! For them, all along, the more the power and authority they can grab, the more the possibility for under-the-table, tax free income! Can they ever give this up? The simple answer is NO!
Small wonder then, that the idea never took off. I firmly believe that we must decentralise our government, and spread out the ministries away from Dhaka to the existing divisional cities (later provincial capitals) as suggested in the article. We have to make decentralisation a reality; and steps should start from mow! Can't the CTG set the ball rolling? If they can modify the constitution, why cannot they alter and improve the administration set up through decentralisation of administrative power and authority? Or do they, like the infamous politicos. also prefer to have all the power concentrated with them sitting and ruling from Dhaka? Do they fill helpless outside Dhaka, despite all the advances in instant communication?
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