Power wastage by the powerful
Letters on a wide variety of subjects by the prolific Mr S A Mansoor have adorned the Letters Page of the DS for a long time. He has simultaneously hit the jackpot and the nail on the head in the concluding para of his last letter “Temporary Relief” in DS, 20 Oct 08. This is well worth repeating:
“ This is the paradox of poor thinking of our powers that be, who encourage (waste of electric) power for useless luxuries, while curtailing necessary power for studies (irrigation, shops, small industries etc) in the suburbs of Dhaka.”
I can personally vouch for this with another stark example of the misuse of power by the powerful. After the Eid lull, the traffic cops are out in full force with their rickshaw-tyre puncturing weapons on the VIP, VVIP and VVVIP roads. Last evening at 6 PM, I (75 years old, with by-pass and cataract operations) was ejected from my rickshaw on my home (Niketon) from work (Banani) together with many other elderly people, women, children, disabled and those carrying small loads (including myself, carrying some 5 kgs of groceries from the BDR store). We were then forced to walk with our loads (my 5 kgs seemed like 100 kgs by the time I reached home) in the dark, pot-holed, pavement-less, barbed-wired Mohakhali Road, while just a few private cars (mostly empty-half empty) and packed buses were rushing alongside with blaring horns and blinding lights on the near empty road (a rare miracle).
Experience one such horrendous journey on the uneven, dug up road, and even the most ardent atheist will start believing in a Divine Being - One who looks after His unfortunate Bangladeshi flock.
What sort of a society are we living in, where more than 50% of the people are either deprived of their livelihood (rickshaw-related families) or rickshaw users of their most convenient, cheap, fast and environmentally safe means of mobility????? All this so that some servile public servants (what a misnomer!) can fawn over a mere 1-2% of the privileged class by giving them free access to roads (paid for by all taxpayers) with their vast assortment of luxury gas guzzling monstrosities, usually obtained by dubious means and some, whose road and fitness taxes may not been paid for years (recent DS Reports).
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