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Sunday, September 20, 2009

[mukto-mona] Request for publishing article [1 Attachment]

<*>[Attachment(s) from Bijon Sarma included below]

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Prof. Bijon Behari Sarma


<*>Attachment(s) from Bijon Sarma:


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<*> TRAFFIC JAM.01.doc

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[mukto-mona] Request for publishing article

DHAKA CITY'S TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM :
IS THERE ANY SOLUTION ?

PROF. BIJON B. SARMA
Dean, Faculty of Architecture and Planning and
Head, Department of architecture
Ahsanullah University of Sc. & Tech. (AUST)

ABSTRACT : The governments of the territory previously known as East
Pakistan and now, Bangladesh have been found to take many costly
measures for solving the transportation problem of Dhaka city.
However, in place of solving, each of their programs has increasingly
aggravated the problem. In this article we have endeavored to find out
the causes of these multiple failures. After analyzing these causes
we have also presented the probable solution. While the problem of
transportation of Dhaka city is the problem of a single city, in the
country it is extremely importance because this one is the capital
city of Bangladesh. We have opined that Dhaka's transport problem is
caused among others by the vehicles coming from all corners of the
country. Naturally this part of the problem is beyond the reach of the
urban authorities and has to be addressed in the national level. We
have also shown that various governments took up programs which have
profusely enriched the concerned technical and administrative
personnel. Even though the problem could have been addressed in unique
way applicable in the context of Bangladesh, neither the planners and
other experts nor the government ever endeavored to do the same. On
the other hand they followed examples followed by countries having
entirely different context. The transportation problem needs immediate
solution. Its solution would act as blessing not only for Dhaka city,
but for the entire country.


INTRODUCTION :
Starting from the first government formed by Bangladesh Awami League
in 1971, all the governments of this territory took many steps to
solve the "transportation problem of Dhaka city" and all have failed.
The present government also has taken up some measures with apparent
signs of failure. The government has also declared "lucrative and safe
policies" like : (i) underground railway, (ii) mono-rail, (iii)
flyovers, (iv) elevated expressways etc. Any person with little
intelligence might understand that these measures also would be proved
failure in the long run. In connection with these ambitious, big
budget and long term policies we have used two terms, "lucrative" and
"safe". These policies are "lucrative" because there remains "play of
big money" from which all the associated persons can make money. These
policies are also "safe", because there exists almost no
accountability in such projects. Such expensive projects need longer
time, like ten or more years, to be materialized. After the project
is finished it may be seen that those who advocated it as "excellent
solution" have safely disappeared from the scene. The high ranking
political personals may have taken shelter in foreign countries,
bureaucrats might have gone on retirement and politicians, changed
parties. And even if any related person is asked "why the project did
not give the predicted result" the possible and safe reply would be,
"well, other unforeseen developments nullified the solution".

We all know, how bravely the advocators of flyover told in its favor,
even though some others opined that those would create more problems.
The advocators won because of the financial attraction of such
project. Now a number of costly flyovers have been constructed in the
city and these have created even greater problems. "Why ?" If one
raises the question with the advocators they would give excuses like
"number of cars, or buses, or people have increased beyond our
estimation, the city expanded beyond our expectations" and so on. The
solution like "underground rail line or Metro", however, is really
capable of solving the transportation problem with the creation of no
or very little hazards. But no sensible and patriotic citizen of
Bangladesh should ever advocate this solution because of its huge
cost. Taking such a costly, lavish and complex project for solving one
single problem of only one city of a poor, flood-prone,
technologically lower-mid level country like Bangladesh should be
considered nothing but mockery for the poor and distressed citizens.
It may be interesting to note that while the entire country is
suffering from numerous problems, Dhaka city even has not other
crucial problems like scarcity of quality drinking water, sewerage
problem, power shortage etc.

WHY THE AUTHORITIES FAIL : For long (2009 – 1971 =) 38 years the
authorities of Dhaka city have endeavored to solve the transportation
problem and have spent millions. In such a situation it is logical to
first have a look into the reasons behind their failure. The three
major reasons behind their failure may be mentioned as : (01)
Kitchen-level solution, (02) Corrupt bureaucrats and political leaders
and (03) Lack of prudency of the urban planners. We shall present
hereunder their brief descriptions.

(01) KITCHEN-LEVEL SOLUTION : If the kitchen-maid is given the
responsibility of solving the problems inside the kitchen, she would
be able to do the same to the maximum extent possible for her. Since
the activities and supplies of the kitchen are intricately related
with other rooms of the house, for effective solution the interference
of the house-owner is a must. Similar is the case with the
'transportation problem of Dhaka city'. Here the problem is related
with the entire country because people from the entire country
contribute to 'transportation problem' with their visits and carrying
of vehicles. The urban authorities do not have any instrument to
control their flow or migration, where as the changes in their number
are key factors in generation of the problem. Because of this reality
we opined that the role of the Dhaka urban authorities is similar to
that of the "kitchen-maid", who does not have control over some of the
major influencing factors staying outside her domain.

(02) CORRUPT BUREAUCRATS AND POLITICAL LEADERS : The single strongest
reason for which Bangladesh as a democratic country could not have
expected level of development is, there is no transparent and
well-spelt system of collection of money for bearing the cost of the
political parties. In democracy the activities of the political
parties is essential and the need of money for the same is obvious.
But there is absolutely no system or provision for collecting the
same. In such a situation the politicians collect money from all
possible sources. The ruling government manages the same from the two
major sources : (a) Big projects and (b) Booties from the law breaking
persons.

(a) Hundreds of millions of Taka have been spent for solving Dhaka
city's transportation problems and all have failed. The ironic truth
is, even though some experts correctly predicted their fates, those
were taken up mostly for the cause of enriching the corrupt
bureaucrats and fuelling the ruling political parties.

(b) Most of the time the people's elected leaders collect booty from
persons enjoying illegal or unlawful opportunities. For example, the
footpaths are meant for people's walking and not for trading. The
local political leaders and monitoring personnel allow the hawkers to
continue the same at the cost of kick-backs.

It will not be possible for any political party of this democratic
country to take up projects entirely for satisfying the people's needs
unless and until a transparent system of fund collection for the
contesting political parties can be ensured.

(03) LACK OF PRUDENCY OF THE URBAN PLANNERS: The first proof of lack
of prudency of the urban authorities is, they cannot even realize that
they are playing the "role of the kitchen maid" in the project where
'house master's interference' is a must. It is evident that the local
urban authorities do not have control over some of the internal and
all of the external factors affecting the city's transportation
domain. Dhaka city's transportation problem is intricately related
with the following internal and external factors :

INTERNAL : (i) Government's policy regarding accommodation of
inhabitants (e.g. density of population per unit area, taking into
consideration the allowable heights of buildings) and commitment to
strict adherence to the declared policies.
(ii) Policy of car occupancy.
(iii) Policy regarding type of city's physical expansion (i.e. whether
it would take place as agglomeration, fringe area absorption,
satellite growth or independent development etc.)

EXTERNAL : Policy regarding entry of people and vehicle from outside
the planned area.

SOME PARADOXES: In Bangladesh some peculiar things can be noticed in
the attitude of the urban authorities. It may seem strange that
various programs taken up by the urban authorities shamelessly go for
ensuring the financial interest of the land owners. Even though
Bangladesh is a democratic country with equal rights for all, their
activities reveal as if they are working for :
(i) Making the city a habitable area for only the affluent people,
(ii) Equipping and enriching the city with facilities, provisions and
services such that people from all over the country and abroad could
be compelled or allured to come here and spend money.

In the history of Bangladesh all the governments, with the lone
exception of President H.M. Ershad, have shown utter ignorance of the
interest of the people living outside Dhaka. President Ershad's
"Upazilla Parishad" program was a excellent gesture of helping the
citizens distributed all over the country.

Some of the means in which the urban authorities ignored the needs of
the common people and endeavored to favor the rich are :

(i) Even though the first condition of efficient movement of people
in any city is "footpath", the Dhaka city authorities have kept blind
eyes on its improvement and maintenance. On many occasions they have
allowed the rich people to use it as car parking, exclusive waiting
space, storage space, garden, business outlet, office for the
political parties etc.
(ii) The urban authorities discovered that rickshaws were the
"hindrance" for the movement of the rich men's cars. So they started
eliminating those from the so called VIP roads. Now, however, they
realize that the cars themselves are their worst enemies and act as
obstruction for their movement even in wide roads.

It is interesting to note that at present the poor people feel amused
to see that when they can somehow manage their movement in the
ill-maintained footpaths and lanes by foot or rickshaws, the rich
people, jammed in their own jungle of cars burn and waste fuel and
suffer from severe pains. This situation however, has created golden
opportunity for the car-traders to sell air-conditioned cars.

MASS TRANSIT : Quite often it is said that an efficient system of mass
transit can solve Dhaka's transportation problem. This solution in
the "level of the kitchen-maids" may be workable only if the higher
authorities (i.e. masters of the house) can ensure the following :
(i) Control over the number of vehicles allowable inside the city,
(ii) Control over the entry of vehicles from outside,
(iii) Number of inhabitants etc.

In case the urban authorities continue its present program of
increasing the city by absorbing the fringe areas, increase of
allowable heights, construction on vacant lands etc., then
mass-transit in large-bodied vehicles would not at all help because in
that case "the roads would eventually be jammed by large bodied
vehicles".

MORE ABOUT THE PROBLEM :
Even the affluent and developed countries could not still solve their
transportation problem by keeping dependence on private cars. However,
such countries themselves are manufacturers and exporters of cars,
they never express anything that may go against their business. The
phenomenon may be clear from the following examples :

(i) In Nigeria vehicles from the entire country used to rush to the
southern port city, Lagos, creating tremendous jam. In order to reduce
the number of cars, on one occasion the city authorities introduced a
rule of allowing cars with odd (or even) numbers on alternate days.
The problem was even more aggravated because many people bought a
second car.

(ii) The developed countries love to advise the oil rich Nigeria for
obvious reasons. As per their advise, the government of Nigeria
started constructed multi-level vehicular roads (raised expressways)
in Lagos for solving the problem of crossing, avoid jam and reduce
travel time. After those were constructed in as many as 4 levels (as
of 1990) it was seen that a vehicle could travel the entire 45
kilometer length of the city in 45 minutes. But then when a vehicle
came down on land to reach its destination at say 2 kilometer apart,
it needed several hours. Those who advocate multi-level vehicular
streets should keep in mind that all vehicles using those roads at one
time shall get down to the ground level to create extreme jam and in
fact lengthening the travel time. Well, the situation could be made
advantageous if only buses were allowed to ply in the expressways.
However, being ex-colonial countries, neither Nigeria nor Bangladesh
can not ever think of a solution that would help only the common
people and not the car owners.

In the city normally the vehicles running in the main road continue
journey while those on the branch roads are kept waiting. However,
when the number of vehicles on the main road increases reducing the
inter-vehicular distance 3 or 4 meters, the above rule needs to be
reversed. At this stage the vehicles from the branch roads "by rule"
are given the first preference, while those on the main road keep
waiting. With the advantage and consequences of the multi-level
expressways Lagos city has to adopt the same. Intelligent men might
understand that unless the conventional rule is reversed, then no
vehicle from the branch road would ever be able to enter the main
road.

(iii) Flyovers smash the charm of a city. It is extremely difficult to
construct flyover in the major two directions in built-up cities, not
to say anything about left and right connections. Flyover without
provisions of right and left turns create tremendous problem for the
people to reach their destination. Standard flyovers with left-right
turns (popularly known as clover-leaf) in spacious cities even do not
save travel time because the vehicles need to move through large
distances. However, since the drivers do not have to keep waiting,
they feel psychological consolation at the cost of wastage of fuel.

The ironic fact is, the use of private vehicles in large number has
not been able to solve transportation problems in any part of the
world. Multiple level vehicular roads create tremendous environmental
and sound pollution. Wider roads allowing speedy vehicles increase
possibility of accidents. Accidents taking place in wide or multiple
level roads result is severe damage and loss of life. One may imagine
how difficult it is to send help to such nearly inaccessible places.
The car-manufacturers and sellers are super-active to hide these
facts. On the other hand they introduce passive solutions like,
introducing cars with movie, internet, coffee-making facilities,
provisions for exercise, book reading etc., saying these save the time
of the owner. In the developed countries they usually bribe the
politicians to adopt projects utilizing cars. Their influences have
entered the arena of education also. The curriculum of Physical
planning courses in those countries has been prepared ensuring maximum
use of private cars. The universities of Bangladesh also have prepared
their curriculum for those courses after their curriculums. In such a
situation it is no wonder that the physical planners having degrees
from home or abroad do not learn to think differently.

In course of his long experience in the developed countries, Dr.
Fazlur Rahman Khan realized the above mentioned problem. On one
occasion he opined, "The workers housing should be established nearest
to the industries such that they can come on foot spending minimum
time. The owners of industries love to construct those at far away
places where land is cheap. They use buses to transport them. Such a
system takes away considerable leisure time of the workers, involve
unnecessary use of vehicles and create permanent loss of gas (gasoline
or fuel) from the limited world reserve of fuel". It was natural that
his intelligent advice was not given importance by the capitalistic
countries. But the irony is, what a Bangladeshi engineer could think
while living in a western country, our planners fail to realize the
same even after living in this poor country.

HOW THE PROBLEM CAN BE SOLVED : We shall now present our proposal to
solve the problem. One serious lacking of our policy makers is, they
always look at the transportation problem as a "physical problem" and
thus endeavor to solve it through "physical measures" only. The fact
is, transportation problem by nature has two aspects : physical and
administrative, and needs to be addressed accordingly.

The transportation problem of Dhaka city has to be addressed from the
following platforms :
01. CENTRAL GOVERNMENT'S DECISION AND COMMITMENT ON SOME FACTORS OF
THE COUNTRY (HAVING EFFECT ON THE CITY'S TRANSPORTATION).
02. MACRO AND MICRO LEVEL ADMINISTRATIVE DECISIONS BY THE URBAN AUTHORITIES.
03. URBAN AUTHORITIES' DECISIONS ON PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT.
04. URBAN AUTHORITIES' DECISIONS ON TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT.

We shall present hereunder brief description of the above.
01. Central government's decision on factors having effect on city's
transportation: At the very beginning the government would have to
decide whether they would continue the tradition of the British and
Pakistani colonial government or act as a democratic government. In
democratic system not the interests of the royalties and bureaucrats,
but that of the common people comes first. During British colonial
period, the bureaucrats shrewdly served their own interest by
appeasing the British royalties. During Pakistani colonial period they
continued the same, where the affluent people from Pakistan replaced
the British royalties. During the military ruled pseudo democracy
(from 1975 to 1990) the bureaucrats treated the military officials as
masters. Even though democracy was initiated in the country in 1990,
still the bureaucrats are could not change their allegiance. Still
today they take up programs and projects where from they can collect
money to satisfy the political party's and their financial interests.
Since multinational companies, dishonest foreign companies and
affluent businessmen unofficially finance the cost of the political
parties, at times the bureaucrats are compelled to take up projects
which can ensure the above conditions. The case of bribing one
ex-prime minister's son by a foreign telecommunication company for
getting business is one of many unexposed cases.

Even in democratic Bangladesh the bureaucrats have established clear
cut difference between the privileged group (comprising of
bureaucrats, influential politicians and affluent people) and the
disadvantaged group (i.e. the common people). In the above context, no
positive result should be expected unless the government changes the
previous attitude. In doing so they must look into the interest of the
entire country and not of Dhaka city alone. We put here our specific
proposal for two measures which would express their honor for
democracy. These are: (a) Decentralization of central administration
and (b) Introduction of Social housing.

(a) DECENTRALIZATION: A city gets the essential finance from various
sources, where one principal source is government fund. Dhaka city is
now getting excessive source, the ill effect of which is being seen in
price hike and excess of wealth including vehicles. At this context we
propose that some ministries (say 10) be transferred to 5 divisional
headquarters. As soon as these ministries would be shifted, it would
on one hand ease the abnormal situation of Dhaka and enormously help
the economy of the divisional cities. Nowadays digital technology has
rendered communication extremely easy. The above mentioned ministries
would have their liaison offices in Dhaka with such provisions that
all digitally transferable information and documents generated in the
Divisional level would be transferred to the city and vice versa. In
addition there will be provision for physical transfer of documents in
special courier within 24 hours. The Ministers and other responsible
personnel working in the divisions would take the help of 'tele' or
'video' conference when needed. In the greater interest of the country
and as part of the solution to Dhaka city's transportation problem, we
propose that the following ministries be immediately shifted to the
following divisional cities:

MINISTRIES PRESENT LOCATION NEW LOCATION (PROPOSED)
Ministry of Agriculture Dhaka Rajshahi
Ministry of Cultural Affairs Dhaka Rajshahi

Ministry of Food & Disaster Management Dhaka Barisal
Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock Dhaka
Barisal


Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) Dhaka Sylhet
Ministry of Environment and Forest Dhaka Sylhet

Ministry of Water Resources Dhaka Khulna
Ministry of Textile and Jute Dhaka Khulna

Ministry of Chittagong Hills Tracts Affairs Dhaka Chittagong
Ministry of Commerce Dhaka Chittagong

(b) SOCIAL HOUSING : The concept of Social Housing is not yet popular
in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh we are aware of two types of housing,
like: (i) Government housing (or quarter), where only the government
servants can live on highly reduced rent and (ii) Private housing,
where both the common people and government servants can live on
negotiable rents. As deviation from this concept "Social Housing" is
the house constructed by the government where both the government
servants and common people can live on negotiable rent.

Large cities like Dhaka is not the place where all people should live
or wish to live for all time to come. The government should not
patronize a system in which people, who are not essential for the city
may be encouraged to live here. The system of renting houses by
private owners helps huge number of non-essential people to live here.
The present trend of owned-apartment has created some hindrance
against the monopolistic house rent business.

Even though better than the renting system, the present system of
owned-apartments have got severe defect. Usually man rent house for
temporary living. On the other hand they purchase house or apartment
for security and as an asset for all time to come. However, the way
owned-apartments are being constructed, sold and managed, these no
more exist as "permanent asset". At present the owners of the
apartment building are given equal right and share on the land. In
almost all the apartment buildings no owner would ever be able to
construct an independent house on the tiny land he owns. Land is
usually known as a permanent asset. However, a tiny land mentioned
above in no way can be treated as permanent asset.

Multi-level apartment buildings are constructed with cement and steel.
These materials have fixed life-span. The life of a building depends
upon on its design, system of construction, environment, natural
hazard etc. Even if we ignore the case of natural hazard which may
smash a building at any time, all buildings have limited life. In
Engineering field the life of a brick building is taken to be about 60
years and that of a concrete building, 80-100 years. Even though the
prediction has been proved to have been true in case of brick
building, it has not been still been proved for concrete building,
because the age of cement and concrete still did not came to this
level. From the available information, one of the earliest apartment
building constructed in Mumbai collapsed after 30 years.

Even though the apartment buildings constructed in Bangladesh at the
initial stage may get longer life, the recently built buildings may
not be that lucky. We can explain the reason here. Nowadays, the
developers treat and use apartment buildings as "salable commodity".
Earlier apartment buildings were constructed at the initiative of a
number of owners, who used to sell the excess units to outsiders.
Naturally the owners in their own interest used to place utmost
importance on the life and safety of the building. But after such
buildings have turned to "salable commodities" the developer's
interest lies in increasing the difference between cost of
construction and sale of units. After the sale is complete the
developer is relieved from all responsibilities including the life of
the building. The developer knows that good finishing fetch good price
and defects like (i) use of less water in curing, (ii) less cement in
mortar, (iii) old or inadequate bars in concrete can never be detected
after the building has been finished. The developer can easily lessen
the cost of construction in the following ways :

(i) Inadequate structural design,
(ii) Excellent structural design, but less use of materials during
construction,
(iii) Defective system of construction.

For example, curing or 'application of water at proper time' ensures
strength of concrete. Life and strength of concrete depends upon
proportion of cement and sand. It is possible for a developer to make
money by ignoring these factors, where the prospective buyers have no
scope to know those.

In the above situation it is possible that the apartments treated as
"salable commodity" would get lesser life-span. Now let us see what
may happen after a building is collapsed. Let us say, a building with
40 owners has collapsed ten years after construction. Now say, the
number of owners by this time has increased to 60. Considering the
realities including loopholes in our judiciary, is there any
possibility that these 60 owners would be able to organize themselves
and take a program for the reconstruction of the building ? The
inevitable reality is to sell the land to the companies at negotiated
price. And that also would be possible if none of the 60 owners come
up with any law suit regarding ownership.

In the above situation it is logical and at the same time very easy
for the government to introduce Social Housing. Also the situation is
ripe for it. For example, in Dhanmondi the land has been given lease
for 99 years. After the expiry of this period the government may
introduce social housing here. Most of the buildings in Azimpur
government housing society are now in dilapidated condition. In place
of repairing, the government can take a program of providing social
housing here. In this endeavor the government may go for construction
of 20 or more storied apartment buildings with no less than 100 ft
inter-building distance. When used in social housing concept the
government can collect considerable rent from such buildings. The most
encouraging thing on the part of the government will be, the
government can declare that for the first time in the history of this
sub-continent they could ignore and go beyond the colonial tradition
of providing accommodation for the government servants only.

We have explained how hundreds or thousands of apartment-owners are
being deprived of the concept of "permanent asset" in their "salable
commodity". We have also explained how the house owners get the scope
of living in the city, even when they are not essential here.
Introduction of "Social Housing" can efficiently take care of both
these problems.

02. Macro and Micro level administrative decisions by the Urban
Authorities : In the Macro-level solution, the urban authorities may
decide on the manageable physical extent of Dhaka city. At present
the land enclosed by the waters of Buriganga, Sitalakhya and Turag
rivers may be taken to be maximum manageable extent of the city. This
region may be called Central Dhaka. Then, its extensions on the other
banks of the rivers may be termed as Dhaka East, Dhaka North etc.
These sub-regions should be developed as independent cities in points
of utilities, infra-structure and socio-economic facilities. Large
bodied vehicles like inter-district bus, train, steamship etc. should
not be allowed beyond the water barrier of the central city. Also all
vehicles entering Central Dhaka should be subjected to payment of
toll.

It should be noted here that unless a suitable mechanism for
controlling the vehicles coming from all corners of the country can be
developed, all endeavors for solving transportation problem, whatever
expensive or unique those might be, would fail.

In Micro-level solution, the urban authorities may go for recreating
the "Wards". Now Ward, the mini-administrative area of the city cannot
be physically identified. In the new system of demarcation, the
authority would take the chunk of urban areas enclosed by wide roads
on all sides and none of such roads would be longer than 2 kilometers.
Each of the wards will be numbered and given a name. Then the
population of each ward will be enumerated. On the basis of this
number the authorities would find out the required number of essential
services like (i) Medical and healthcare centre, (ii) Financial
institutions, (iii) One stop bill payment booth, (iv) Children's
school, (v) Vegetable fish meat market, (vi) Medicine shop, (vii)
Community centre, (viii) Postal or Courier and parcel service points,
(ix) Repair shop for household gadgets etc. After finalizing the
number the authority would invite information from the existing
establishments. Then the urban authority would give recognition to the
requisite number of such establishments on the basis of their
facilities and locations. The recognized establishments would be
allowed to continue activities at reduced tax, where as others would
have to pay taxes at enhanced rate. This rule would help to establish
the required number of facilities, and at the same time, eliminate the
excess ones from each ward. As soon as the inhabitants would find
their essential facilities within 2 kilometers (which is within
walking limit of Bangladesh) they would use fewer vehicles for
availing these purposes. Inside each Ward, user-friendly vehicles like
cycle, trolley etc. should be encouraged and entry of bus, truck etc.
should be restricted and controlled.

03. Physical developments: (a) FOOTPATH : The urban authorities
should place immense importance on footpath. Those should be
constructed with specifications to satisfy the following : (i)
Peoples' easy walking, (ii) Kids' normal travel and also in
perambulator, (iii) Movement of handicapped persons wheel chair and
(iv) People's movement with loaded trolleys. In all possible cases
those should be covered with soft or hard roof.

(b) FOOT OVER BRIDGE : The travel time in the urban area can be
shortened by speedy vehicles. Such movements however, cause road
accidents. It is interesting that even though Dhaka city is at present
experiencing tremendous traffic jam resulting in slow movement, there
is meager road accident. It has been observed that during long
holidays when the traffic in the city decreases and the cars move at
speed there happen accidents. Since our endeavor is to shorten travel
time, we have to ensure quicker velocity of vehicles. In order to
ensure that the urban authorities would have to construct foot-over
bridge at regular intervals. In all possible cases these should be
covered to protect people during inclement weather.

04. Transport management: In a democratic country the government
cannot discourage people from using cars. However, it is crystal clear
that the narrow and inadequate roads of Dhaka city in no way can
sustain the cars already owned by the present population, not to say
anything about their future number, taking into account the increase
of population allowable under the provisions made by the urban
authorities. In such a situation the solution is to ensure such type
of alternate arrangement that even the owners would prefer to use
those. As part of this program superior quality school buses need be
introduced at subsidized rate for the children. Staff buses with only
two-times-per-day use is in no way economic for Bangladesh and it
should be discouraged by imposing heavy tax. Quite often it is said
that introduction of luxury buses would be able to discourage use of
cars. This is partly correct. As a matter of fact such buses in no way
would be able to attract the car owners, unless there is efficient and
comfortable system of (i) Ticketing, (ii) Waiting, (iii) Boarding and
(iv) Time-maintaining provisions. Vesting all these in the hands of
the profit-hungry transport businessmen can never ensure the expected
goal. The government would have to treat it as a service sector and
manage things, where the vehicles may be owned by private owners but
management will be done by the government.

CONCLUSION : As of now the story of the Bangladesh government's
failure to solve the transportation problem of Dhaka city is a story
discussed even by the kids. Every time a new government rises to power
it promises to solve it and declares some programs. At times they
impose restrictions, mostly on the movement of vehicles used by the
poor, spends considerably on physical developments that might help the
rich class. In the long run, however, it is seen that in place of
solving, those have further complicated the problem. Also, the inquiry
team formed by the contemporary government reveals corruption and
kick-back cases of the previous government.

Now, Bangladesh is being ruled by the government formed by Bangladesh
Awami League and its allies. They have won landslide victory in the
election held in 2009. As usual, this government also has revealed
some corruptions of the previous government in this sector. Following
the suit of their predecessors they have expressed promises and
declared programs for solution. With their previous experiences the
common people of the country and specially the suffering population of
Dhaka city know, their promises and programs are going to meet the
previous fate. It really is destined to be so, because never before
any government felt for in-depth analysis of this extremely
complicated problem.

We have endeavored to raise the issues related with this extremely
complicated problem. The limited page of the paper does not allow
detail discussion. We have endeavored to mention the vital and
decisive points, without the consideration of which such a complicated
problem cannot be solved. If seen superficially some of the points may
seem to be of secondary or tertiary importance. A second thought
however would reveal that those are quite important. Ignoring these in
fact resulted in the failures of the previous programs.

It may be seen that the proposals we have placed above is not at all
expensive in comparison with what the government at times suggest. One
may easily imagine the enormous cost of flyovers, expressways,
mono-rails, metro etc. These solutions would in no way reduce the
travel time and expenditure of the people. In our proposal there is no
proposal for such physical development. Even though some of our
proposal may seem costly for the time being, those might prove
economic in the long run. Thus shifting of the ministries from Dhaka
city to a distant divisional city might seem "costly" now. But after
the shifting has taken place the government may discover that running
this ministry in that location is much cheaper than doing the same in
Dhaka. Arrangements for lessening the need for journey by arranging or
re-arranging the necessities near to the place of living, encouraging
people to walk on easier footpaths etc. would lessen people's
dependence on cars and buses. And that would save huge foreign
currency of this poor the country that is now spent in import of cars,
buses, spare parts and fuels.

In materializing our proposal what the government needs is not money,
but courage and honesty. They would need democratic and mission-like
mentality to break apart the colonial traditions. Let us hope the
present government would be able to show that.

The various ways and means of solving transportation problem by using
less number of vehicles is something that the physical planners of
Bangladesh would have to "invent" by themselves. They would not get
any assistance in this endeavor from the developed countries, because
such measures go highly against their car-related business.

Bangladesh is a poor country with excess of population and no dearth
of problems. For such a country failure in any costly program may
prove fatal. We hope, in view of their numerous failures in the past,
we believe and request that this time the concerned authorities would
strive for hinest and intelligent solutions.


This paper is available from the link :
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1476115. (SSRN, New York, USA)

--
Prof. Bijon Behari Sarma


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[mukto-mona] Paper titled "DHAKA CITY’S TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM : IS THERE ANY SOLUTION ?" with request for publication

DHAKA CITY'S TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM :
IS THERE ANY SOLUTION ?

PROF. BIJON B. SARMA
Dean, Faculty of Architecture and Planning and
Head, Department of architecture
Ahsanullah University of Sc. & Tech. (AUST)

ABSTRACT : The governments of the territory previously known as East
Pakistan and now, Bangladesh have been found to take many costly
measures for solving the transportation problem of Dhaka city.
However, in place of solving, each of their programs has increasingly
aggravated the problem. In this article we have endeavored to find out
the causes of these multiple failures. After analyzing these causes
we have also presented the probable solution. While the problem of
transportation of Dhaka city is the problem of a single city, in the
country it is extremely importance because this one is the capital
city of Bangladesh. We have opined that Dhaka's transport problem is
caused among others by the vehicles coming from all corners of the
country. Naturally this part of the problem is beyond the reach of the
urban authorities and has to be addressed in the national level. We
have also shown that various governments took up programs which have
profusely enriched the concerned technical and administrative
personnel. Even though the problem could have been addressed in unique
way applicable in the context of Bangladesh, neither the planners and
other experts nor the government ever endeavored to do the same. On
the other hand they followed examples followed by countries having
entirely different context. The transportation problem needs immediate
solution. Its solution would act as blessing not only for Dhaka city,
but for the entire country.


INTRODUCTION :
Starting from the first government formed by Bangladesh Awami League
in 1971, all the governments of this territory took many steps to
solve the "transportation problem of Dhaka city" and all have failed.
The present government also has taken up some measures with apparent
signs of failure. The government has also declared "lucrative and safe
policies" like : (i) underground railway, (ii) mono-rail, (iii)
flyovers, (iv) elevated expressways etc. Any person with little
intelligence might understand that these measures also would be proved
failure in the long run. In connection with these ambitious, big
budget and long term policies we have used two terms, "lucrative" and
"safe". These policies are "lucrative" because there remains "play of
big money" from which all the associated persons can make money. These
policies are also "safe", because there exists almost no
accountability in such projects. Such expensive projects need longer
time, like ten or more years, to be materialized. After the project
is finished it may be seen that those who advocated it as "excellent
solution" have safely disappeared from the scene. The high ranking
political personals may have taken shelter in foreign countries,
bureaucrats might have gone on retirement and politicians, changed
parties. And even if any related person is asked "why the project did
not give the predicted result" the possible and safe reply would be,
"well, other unforeseen developments nullified the solution".

We all know, how bravely the advocators of flyover told in its favor,
even though some others opined that those would create more problems.
The advocators won because of the financial attraction of such
project. Now a number of costly flyovers have been constructed in the
city and these have created even greater problems. "Why ?" If one
raises the question with the advocators they would give excuses like
"number of cars, or buses, or people have increased beyond our
estimation, the city expanded beyond our expectations" and so on. The
solution like "underground rail line or Metro", however, is really
capable of solving the transportation problem with the creation of no
or very little hazards. But no sensible and patriotic citizen of
Bangladesh should ever advocate this solution because of its huge
cost. Taking such a costly, lavish and complex project for solving one
single problem of only one city of a poor, flood-prone,
technologically lower-mid level country like Bangladesh should be
considered nothing but mockery for the poor and distressed citizens.
It may be interesting to note that while the entire country is
suffering from numerous problems, Dhaka city even has not other
crucial problems like scarcity of quality drinking water, sewerage
problem, power shortage etc.

WHY THE AUTHORITIES FAIL : For long (2009 – 1971 =) 38 years the
authorities of Dhaka city have endeavored to solve the transportation
problem and have spent millions. In such a situation it is logical to
first have a look into the reasons behind their failure. The three
major reasons behind their failure may be mentioned as : (01)
Kitchen-level solution, (02) Corrupt bureaucrats and political leaders
and (03) Lack of prudency of the urban planners. We shall present
hereunder their brief descriptions.

(01) KITCHEN-LEVEL SOLUTION : If the kitchen-maid is given the
responsibility of solving the problems inside the kitchen, she would
be able to do the same to the maximum extent possible for her. Since
the activities and supplies of the kitchen are intricately related
with other rooms of the house, for effective solution the interference
of the house-owner is a must. Similar is the case with the
'transportation problem of Dhaka city'. Here the problem is related
with the entire country because people from the entire country
contribute to 'transportation problem' with their visits and carrying
of vehicles. The urban authorities do not have any instrument to
control their flow or migration, where as the changes in their number
are key factors in generation of the problem. Because of this reality
we opined that the role of the Dhaka urban authorities is similar to
that of the "kitchen-maid", who does not have control over some of the
major influencing factors staying outside her domain.

(02) CORRUPT BUREAUCRATS AND POLITICAL LEADERS : The single strongest
reason for which Bangladesh as a democratic country could not have
expected level of development is, there is no transparent and
well-spelt system of collection of money for bearing the cost of the
political parties. In democracy the activities of the political
parties is essential and the need of money for the same is obvious.
But there is absolutely no system or provision for collecting the
same. In such a situation the politicians collect money from all
possible sources. The ruling government manages the same from the two
major sources : (a) Big projects and (b) Booties from the law breaking
persons.

(a) Hundreds of millions of Taka have been spent for solving Dhaka
city's transportation problems and all have failed. The ironic truth
is, even though some experts correctly predicted their fates, those
were taken up mostly for the cause of enriching the corrupt
bureaucrats and fuelling the ruling political parties.

(b) Most of the time the people's elected leaders collect booty from
persons enjoying illegal or unlawful opportunities. For example, the
footpaths are meant for people's walking and not for trading. The
local political leaders and monitoring personnel allow the hawkers to
continue the same at the cost of kick-backs.

It will not be possible for any political party of this democratic
country to take up projects entirely for satisfying the people's needs
unless and until a transparent system of fund collection for the
contesting political parties can be ensured.

(03) LACK OF PRUDENCY OF THE URBAN PLANNERS: The first proof of lack
of prudency of the urban authorities is, they cannot even realize that
they are playing the "role of the kitchen maid" in the project where
'house master's interference' is a must. It is evident that the local
urban authorities do not have control over some of the internal and
all of the external factors affecting the city's transportation
domain. Dhaka city's transportation problem is intricately related
with the following internal and external factors :

INTERNAL : (i) Government's policy regarding accommodation of
inhabitants (e.g. density of population per unit area, taking into
consideration the allowable heights of buildings) and commitment to
strict adherence to the declared policies.
(ii) Policy of car occupancy.
(iii) Policy regarding type of city's physical expansion (i.e. whether
it would take place as agglomeration, fringe area absorption,
satellite growth or independent development etc.)

EXTERNAL : Policy regarding entry of people and vehicle from outside
the planned area.

SOME PARADOXES: In Bangladesh some peculiar things can be noticed in
the attitude of the urban authorities. It may seem strange that
various programs taken up by the urban authorities shamelessly go for
ensuring the financial interest of the land owners. Even though
Bangladesh is a democratic country with equal rights for all, their
activities reveal as if they are working for :
(i) Making the city a habitable area for only the affluent people,
(ii) Equipping and enriching the city with facilities, provisions and
services such that people from all over the country and abroad could
be compelled or allured to come here and spend money.

In the history of Bangladesh all the governments, with the lone
exception of President H.M. Ershad, have shown utter ignorance of the
interest of the people living outside Dhaka. President Ershad's
"Upazilla Parishad" program was a excellent gesture of helping the
citizens distributed all over the country.

Some of the means in which the urban authorities ignored the needs of
the common people and endeavored to favor the rich are :

(i) Even though the first condition of efficient movement of people
in any city is "footpath", the Dhaka city authorities have kept blind
eyes on its improvement and maintenance. On many occasions they have
allowed the rich people to use it as car parking, exclusive waiting
space, storage space, garden, business outlet, office for the
political parties etc.
(ii) The urban authorities discovered that rickshaws were the
"hindrance" for the movement of the rich men's cars. So they started
eliminating those from the so called VIP roads. Now, however, they
realize that the cars themselves are their worst enemies and act as
obstruction for their movement even in wide roads.

It is interesting to note that at present the poor people feel amused
to see that when they can somehow manage their movement in the
ill-maintained footpaths and lanes by foot or rickshaws, the rich
people, jammed in their own jungle of cars burn and waste fuel and
suffer from severe pains. This situation however, has created golden
opportunity for the car-traders to sell air-conditioned cars.

MASS TRANSIT : Quite often it is said that an efficient system of mass
transit can solve Dhaka's transportation problem. This solution in
the "level of the kitchen-maids" may be workable only if the higher
authorities (i.e. masters of the house) can ensure the following :
(i) Control over the number of vehicles allowable inside the city,
(ii) Control over the entry of vehicles from outside,
(iii) Number of inhabitants etc.

In case the urban authorities continue its present program of
increasing the city by absorbing the fringe areas, increase of
allowable heights, construction on vacant lands etc., then
mass-transit in large-bodied vehicles would not at all help because in
that case "the roads would eventually be jammed by large bodied
vehicles".

MORE ABOUT THE PROBLEM :
Even the affluent and developed countries could not still solve their
transportation problem by keeping dependence on private cars. However,
such countries themselves are manufacturers and exporters of cars,
they never express anything that may go against their business. The
phenomenon may be clear from the following examples :

(i) In Nigeria vehicles from the entire country used to rush to the
southern port city, Lagos, creating tremendous jam. In order to reduce
the number of cars, on one occasion the city authorities introduced a
rule of allowing cars with odd (or even) numbers on alternate days.
The problem was even more aggravated because many people bought a
second car.

(ii) The developed countries love to advise the oil rich Nigeria for
obvious reasons. As per their advise, the government of Nigeria
started constructed multi-level vehicular roads (raised expressways)
in Lagos for solving the problem of crossing, avoid jam and reduce
travel time. After those were constructed in as many as 4 levels (as
of 1990) it was seen that a vehicle could travel the entire 45
kilometer length of the city in 45 minutes. But then when a vehicle
came down on land to reach its destination at say 2 kilometer apart,
it needed several hours. Those who advocate multi-level vehicular
streets should keep in mind that all vehicles using those roads at one
time shall get down to the ground level to create extreme jam and in
fact lengthening the travel time. Well, the situation could be made
advantageous if only buses were allowed to ply in the expressways.
However, being ex-colonial countries, neither Nigeria nor Bangladesh
can not ever think of a solution that would help only the common
people and not the car owners.

In the city normally the vehicles running in the main road continue
journey while those on the branch roads are kept waiting. However,
when the number of vehicles on the main road increases reducing the
inter-vehicular distance 3 or 4 meters, the above rule needs to be
reversed. At this stage the vehicles from the branch roads "by rule"
are given the first preference, while those on the main road keep
waiting. With the advantage and consequences of the multi-level
expressways Lagos city has to adopt the same. Intelligent men might
understand that unless the conventional rule is reversed, then no
vehicle from the branch road would ever be able to enter the main
road.

(iii) Flyovers smash the charm of a city. It is extremely difficult to
construct flyover in the major two directions in built-up cities, not
to say anything about left and right connections. Flyover without
provisions of right and left turns create tremendous problem for the
people to reach their destination. Standard flyovers with left-right
turns (popularly known as clover-leaf) in spacious cities even do not
save travel time because the vehicles need to move through large
distances. However, since the drivers do not have to keep waiting,
they feel psychological consolation at the cost of wastage of fuel.

The ironic fact is, the use of private vehicles in large number has
not been able to solve transportation problems in any part of the
world. Multiple level vehicular roads create tremendous environmental
and sound pollution. Wider roads allowing speedy vehicles increase
possibility of accidents. Accidents taking place in wide or multiple
level roads result is severe damage and loss of life. One may imagine
how difficult it is to send help to such nearly inaccessible places.
The car-manufacturers and sellers are super-active to hide these
facts. On the other hand they introduce passive solutions like,
introducing cars with movie, internet, coffee-making facilities,
provisions for exercise, book reading etc., saying these save the time
of the owner. In the developed countries they usually bribe the
politicians to adopt projects utilizing cars. Their influences have
entered the arena of education also. The curriculum of Physical
planning courses in those countries has been prepared ensuring maximum
use of private cars. The universities of Bangladesh also have prepared
their curriculum for those courses after their curriculums. In such a
situation it is no wonder that the physical planners having degrees
from home or abroad do not learn to think differently.

In course of his long experience in the developed countries, Dr.
Fazlur Rahman Khan realized the above mentioned problem. On one
occasion he opined, "The workers housing should be established nearest
to the industries such that they can come on foot spending minimum
time. The owners of industries love to construct those at far away
places where land is cheap. They use buses to transport them. Such a
system takes away considerable leisure time of the workers, involve
unnecessary use of vehicles and create permanent loss of gas (gasoline
or fuel) from the limited world reserve of fuel". It was natural that
his intelligent advice was not given importance by the capitalistic
countries. But the irony is, what a Bangladeshi engineer could think
while living in a western country, our planners fail to realize the
same even after living in this poor country.

HOW THE PROBLEM CAN BE SOLVED : We shall now present our proposal to
solve the problem. One serious lacking of our policy makers is, they
always look at the transportation problem as a "physical problem" and
thus endeavor to solve it through "physical measures" only. The fact
is, transportation problem by nature has two aspects : physical and
administrative, and needs to be addressed accordingly.

The transportation problem of Dhaka city has to be addressed from the
following platforms :
01. CENTRAL GOVERNMENT'S DECISION AND COMMITMENT ON SOME FACTORS OF
THE COUNTRY (HAVING EFFECT ON THE CITY'S TRANSPORTATION).
02. MACRO AND MICRO LEVEL ADMINISTRATIVE DECISIONS BY THE URBAN AUTHORITIES.
03. URBAN AUTHORITIES' DECISIONS ON PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT.
04. URBAN AUTHORITIES' DECISIONS ON TRANSPORT MANAGEMENT.

We shall present hereunder brief description of the above.
01. Central government's decision on factors having effect on city's
transportation: At the very beginning the government would have to
decide whether they would continue the tradition of the British and
Pakistani colonial government or act as a democratic government. In
democratic system not the interests of the royalties and bureaucrats,
but that of the common people comes first. During British colonial
period, the bureaucrats shrewdly served their own interest by
appeasing the British royalties. During Pakistani colonial period they
continued the same, where the affluent people from Pakistan replaced
the British royalties. During the military ruled pseudo democracy
(from 1975 to 1990) the bureaucrats treated the military officials as
masters. Even though democracy was initiated in the country in 1990,
still the bureaucrats are could not change their allegiance. Still
today they take up programs and projects where from they can collect
money to satisfy the political party's and their financial interests.
Since multinational companies, dishonest foreign companies and
affluent businessmen unofficially finance the cost of the political
parties, at times the bureaucrats are compelled to take up projects
which can ensure the above conditions. The case of bribing one
ex-prime minister's son by a foreign telecommunication company for
getting business is one of many unexposed cases.

Even in democratic Bangladesh the bureaucrats have established clear
cut difference between the privileged group (comprising of
bureaucrats, influential politicians and affluent people) and the
disadvantaged group (i.e. the common people). In the above context, no
positive result should be expected unless the government changes the
previous attitude. In doing so they must look into the interest of the
entire country and not of Dhaka city alone. We put here our specific
proposal for two measures which would express their honor for
democracy. These are: (a) Decentralization of central administration
and (b) Introduction of Social housing.

(a) DECENTRALIZATION: A city gets the essential finance from various
sources, where one principal source is government fund. Dhaka city is
now getting excessive source, the ill effect of which is being seen in
price hike and excess of wealth including vehicles. At this context we
propose that some ministries (say 10) be transferred to 5 divisional
headquarters. As soon as these ministries would be shifted, it would
on one hand ease the abnormal situation of Dhaka and enormously help
the economy of the divisional cities. Nowadays digital technology has
rendered communication extremely easy. The above mentioned ministries
would have their liaison offices in Dhaka with such provisions that
all digitally transferable information and documents generated in the
Divisional level would be transferred to the city and vice versa. In
addition there will be provision for physical transfer of documents in
special courier within 24 hours. The Ministers and other responsible
personnel working in the divisions would take the help of 'tele' or
'video' conference when needed. In the greater interest of the country
and as part of the solution to Dhaka city's transportation problem, we
propose that the following ministries be immediately shifted to the
following divisional cities:

MINISTRIES PRESENT LOCATION NEW LOCATION (PROPOSED)
Ministry of Agriculture Dhaka Rajshahi
Ministry of Cultural Affairs Dhaka Rajshahi

Ministry of Food & Disaster Management Dhaka Barisal
Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock Dhaka
Barisal


Ministry of Religious Affairs (MORA) Dhaka Sylhet
Ministry of Environment and Forest Dhaka Sylhet

Ministry of Water Resources Dhaka Khulna
Ministry of Textile and Jute Dhaka Khulna

Ministry of Chittagong Hills Tracts Affairs Dhaka Chittagong
Ministry of Commerce Dhaka Chittagong

(b) SOCIAL HOUSING : The concept of Social Housing is not yet popular
in Bangladesh. In Bangladesh we are aware of two types of housing,
like: (i) Government housing (or quarter), where only the government
servants can live on highly reduced rent and (ii) Private housing,
where both the common people and government servants can live on
negotiable rents. As deviation from this concept "Social Housing" is
the house constructed by the government where both the government
servants and common people can live on negotiable rent.

Large cities like Dhaka is not the place where all people should live
or wish to live for all time to come. The government should not
patronize a system in which people, who are not essential for the city
may be encouraged to live here. The system of renting houses by
private owners helps huge number of non-essential people to live here.
The present trend of owned-apartment has created some hindrance
against the monopolistic house rent business.

Even though better than the renting system, the present system of
owned-apartments have got severe defect. Usually man rent house for
temporary living. On the other hand they purchase house or apartment
for security and as an asset for all time to come. However, the way
owned-apartments are being constructed, sold and managed, these no
more exist as "permanent asset". At present the owners of the
apartment building are given equal right and share on the land. In
almost all the apartment buildings no owner would ever be able to
construct an independent house on the tiny land he owns. Land is
usually known as a permanent asset. However, a tiny land mentioned
above in no way can be treated as permanent asset.

Multi-level apartment buildings are constructed with cement and steel.
These materials have fixed life-span. The life of a building depends
upon on its design, system of construction, environment, natural
hazard etc. Even if we ignore the case of natural hazard which may
smash a building at any time, all buildings have limited life. In
Engineering field the life of a brick building is taken to be about 60
years and that of a concrete building, 80-100 years. Even though the
prediction has been proved to have been true in case of brick
building, it has not been still been proved for concrete building,
because the age of cement and concrete still did not came to this
level. From the available information, one of the earliest apartment
building constructed in Mumbai collapsed after 30 years.

Even though the apartment buildings constructed in Bangladesh at the
initial stage may get longer life, the recently built buildings may
not be that lucky. We can explain the reason here. Nowadays, the
developers treat and use apartment buildings as "salable commodity".
Earlier apartment buildings were constructed at the initiative of a
number of owners, who used to sell the excess units to outsiders.
Naturally the owners in their own interest used to place utmost
importance on the life and safety of the building. But after such
buildings have turned to "salable commodities" the developer's
interest lies in increasing the difference between cost of
construction and sale of units. After the sale is complete the
developer is relieved from all responsibilities including the life of
the building. The developer knows that good finishing fetch good price
and defects like (i) use of less water in curing, (ii) less cement in
mortar, (iii) old or inadequate bars in concrete can never be detected
after the building has been finished. The developer can easily lessen
the cost of construction in the following ways :

(i) Inadequate structural design,
(ii) Excellent structural design, but less use of materials during
construction,
(iii) Defective system of construction.

For example, curing or 'application of water at proper time' ensures
strength of concrete. Life and strength of concrete depends upon
proportion of cement and sand. It is possible for a developer to make
money by ignoring these factors, where the prospective buyers have no
scope to know those.

In the above situation it is possible that the apartments treated as
"salable commodity" would get lesser life-span. Now let us see what
may happen after a building is collapsed. Let us say, a building with
40 owners has collapsed ten years after construction. Now say, the
number of owners by this time has increased to 60. Considering the
realities including loopholes in our judiciary, is there any
possibility that these 60 owners would be able to organize themselves
and take a program for the reconstruction of the building ? The
inevitable reality is to sell the land to the companies at negotiated
price. And that also would be possible if none of the 60 owners come
up with any law suit regarding ownership.

In the above situation it is logical and at the same time very easy
for the government to introduce Social Housing. Also the situation is
ripe for it. For example, in Dhanmondi the land has been given lease
for 99 years. After the expiry of this period the government may
introduce social housing here. Most of the buildings in Azimpur
government housing society are now in dilapidated condition. In place
of repairing, the government can take a program of providing social
housing here. In this endeavor the government may go for construction
of 20 or more storied apartment buildings with no less than 100 ft
inter-building distance. When used in social housing concept the
government can collect considerable rent from such buildings. The most
encouraging thing on the part of the government will be, the
government can declare that for the first time in the history of this
sub-continent they could ignore and go beyond the colonial tradition
of providing accommodation for the government servants only.

We have explained how hundreds or thousands of apartment-owners are
being deprived of the concept of "permanent asset" in their "salable
commodity". We have also explained how the house owners get the scope
of living in the city, even when they are not essential here.
Introduction of "Social Housing" can efficiently take care of both
these problems.

02. Macro and Micro level administrative decisions by the Urban
Authorities : In the Macro-level solution, the urban authorities may
decide on the manageable physical extent of Dhaka city. At present
the land enclosed by the waters of Buriganga, Sitalakhya and Turag
rivers may be taken to be maximum manageable extent of the city. This
region may be called Central Dhaka. Then, its extensions on the other
banks of the rivers may be termed as Dhaka East, Dhaka North etc.
These sub-regions should be developed as independent cities in points
of utilities, infra-structure and socio-economic facilities. Large
bodied vehicles like inter-district bus, train, steamship etc. should
not be allowed beyond the water barrier of the central city. Also all
vehicles entering Central Dhaka should be subjected to payment of
toll.

It should be noted here that unless a suitable mechanism for
controlling the vehicles coming from all corners of the country can be
developed, all endeavors for solving transportation problem, whatever
expensive or unique those might be, would fail.

In Micro-level solution, the urban authorities may go for recreating
the "Wards". Now Ward, the mini-administrative area of the city cannot
be physically identified. In the new system of demarcation, the
authority would take the chunk of urban areas enclosed by wide roads
on all sides and none of such roads would be longer than 2 kilometers.
Each of the wards will be numbered and given a name. Then the
population of each ward will be enumerated. On the basis of this
number the authorities would find out the required number of essential
services like (i) Medical and healthcare centre, (ii) Financial
institutions, (iii) One stop bill payment booth, (iv) Children's
school, (v) Vegetable fish meat market, (vi) Medicine shop, (vii)
Community centre, (viii) Postal or Courier and parcel service points,
(ix) Repair shop for household gadgets etc. After finalizing the
number the authority would invite information from the existing
establishments. Then the urban authority would give recognition to the
requisite number of such establishments on the basis of their
facilities and locations. The recognized establishments would be
allowed to continue activities at reduced tax, where as others would
have to pay taxes at enhanced rate. This rule would help to establish
the required number of facilities, and at the same time, eliminate the
excess ones from each ward. As soon as the inhabitants would find
their essential facilities within 2 kilometers (which is within
walking limit of Bangladesh) they would use fewer vehicles for
availing these purposes. Inside each Ward, user-friendly vehicles like
cycle, trolley etc. should be encouraged and entry of bus, truck etc.
should be restricted and controlled.

03. Physical developments: (a) FOOTPATH : The urban authorities
should place immense importance on footpath. Those should be
constructed with specifications to satisfy the following : (i)
Peoples' easy walking, (ii) Kids' normal travel and also in
perambulator, (iii) Movement of handicapped persons wheel chair and
(iv) People's movement with loaded trolleys. In all possible cases
those should be covered with soft or hard roof.

(b) FOOT OVER BRIDGE : The travel time in the urban area can be
shortened by speedy vehicles. Such movements however, cause road
accidents. It is interesting that even though Dhaka city is at present
experiencing tremendous traffic jam resulting in slow movement, there
is meager road accident. It has been observed that during long
holidays when the traffic in the city decreases and the cars move at
speed there happen accidents. Since our endeavor is to shorten travel
time, we have to ensure quicker velocity of vehicles. In order to
ensure that the urban authorities would have to construct foot-over
bridge at regular intervals. In all possible cases these should be
covered to protect people during inclement weather.

04. Transport management: In a democratic country the government
cannot discourage people from using cars. However, it is crystal clear
that the narrow and inadequate roads of Dhaka city in no way can
sustain the cars already owned by the present population, not to say
anything about their future number, taking into account the increase
of population allowable under the provisions made by the urban
authorities. In such a situation the solution is to ensure such type
of alternate arrangement that even the owners would prefer to use
those. As part of this program superior quality school buses need be
introduced at subsidized rate for the children. Staff buses with only
two-times-per-day use is in no way economic for Bangladesh and it
should be discouraged by imposing heavy tax. Quite often it is said
that introduction of luxury buses would be able to discourage use of
cars. This is partly correct. As a matter of fact such buses in no way
would be able to attract the car owners, unless there is efficient and
comfortable system of (i) Ticketing, (ii) Waiting, (iii) Boarding and
(iv) Time-maintaining provisions. Vesting all these in the hands of
the profit-hungry transport businessmen can never ensure the expected
goal. The government would have to treat it as a service sector and
manage things, where the vehicles may be owned by private owners but
management will be done by the government.

CONCLUSION : As of now the story of the Bangladesh government's
failure to solve the transportation problem of Dhaka city is a story
discussed even by the kids. Every time a new government rises to power
it promises to solve it and declares some programs. At times they
impose restrictions, mostly on the movement of vehicles used by the
poor, spends considerably on physical developments that might help the
rich class. In the long run, however, it is seen that in place of
solving, those have further complicated the problem. Also, the inquiry
team formed by the contemporary government reveals corruption and
kick-back cases of the previous government.

Now, Bangladesh is being ruled by the government formed by Bangladesh
Awami League and its allies. They have won landslide victory in the
election held in 2009. As usual, this government also has revealed
some corruptions of the previous government in this sector. Following
the suit of their predecessors they have expressed promises and
declared programs for solution. With their previous experiences the
common people of the country and specially the suffering population of
Dhaka city know, their promises and programs are going to meet the
previous fate. It really is destined to be so, because never before
any government felt for in-depth analysis of this extremely
complicated problem.

We have endeavored to raise the issues related with this extremely
complicated problem. The limited page of the paper does not allow
detail discussion. We have endeavored to mention the vital and
decisive points, without the consideration of which such a complicated
problem cannot be solved. If seen superficially some of the points may
seem to be of secondary or tertiary importance. A second thought
however would reveal that those are quite important. Ignoring these in
fact resulted in the failures of the previous programs.

It may be seen that the proposals we have placed above is not at all
expensive in comparison with what the government at times suggest. One
may easily imagine the enormous cost of flyovers, expressways,
mono-rails, metro etc. These solutions would in no way reduce the
travel time and expenditure of the people. In our proposal there is no
proposal for such physical development. Even though some of our
proposal may seem costly for the time being, those might prove
economic in the long run. Thus shifting of the ministries from Dhaka
city to a distant divisional city might seem "costly" now. But after
the shifting has taken place the government may discover that running
this ministry in that location is much cheaper than doing the same in
Dhaka. Arrangements for lessening the need for journey by arranging or
re-arranging the necessities near to the place of living, encouraging
people to walk on easier footpaths etc. would lessen people's
dependence on cars and buses. And that would save huge foreign
currency of this poor the country that is now spent in import of cars,
buses, spare parts and fuels.

In materializing our proposal what the government needs is not money,
but courage and honesty. They would need democratic and mission-like
mentality to break apart the colonial traditions. Let us hope the
present government would be able to show that.

The various ways and means of solving transportation problem by using
less number of vehicles is something that the physical planners of
Bangladesh would have to "invent" by themselves. They would not get
any assistance in this endeavor from the developed countries, because
such measures go highly against their car-related business.

Bangladesh is a poor country with excess of population and no dearth
of problems. For such a country failure in any costly program may
prove fatal. We hope, in view of their numerous failures in the past,
we believe and request that this time the concerned authorities would
strive for hinest and intelligent solutions.


This paper is available from the link :
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1476115. (SSRN, New York, USA)


--
Prof. Bijon Behari Sarma


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[mukto-mona] Rallies held in Australia to Stop Climate Change



 

 

 

Rallies held in Australia to Stop Climate Change

and Save Bangladesh

 

The Bangladeshi community and the supporters rallied in Canberra and Sydney on Friday 18 September 2009 for drawing attention of the international community in support of Bangladesh that has been identified as the most vulnerable country for climate change affect.   Bangladesh is expected to be severely affected from the rising sea levels of melting of the Himalayan glaciers, salinity and extreme weather events. The huge number of people affected will destabilise Bangladesh, South Asia, and the world as a whole. The Rally urged World community and UN to come forward to provide assistance to Bangladesh and mitigate the problem.

 

 

The Canberra rally was organised by the Bangladesh Environment Network (BEN), Canberra chapter. In Canberra rally, Member of the ACT Legislative Assembly Shane Rattenbury and MLA Caroline Le Couteur with other supporters express their solidarity with the causes.

 

Members from the Climate Action Canberra, Climate Justice Canberra, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, and Clean Energy for Eternity and Australia Bangladesh Association, such as Leigh Hughes, Anne O'Brien, Cindy Eiritz, Philippa, Clayton McDonald, Nicky Moffat, Dr M Mainuddin, Dr Kamal Uddin, Dr Ajoy kar, Dr Moyjur Rahman, writer Ivy Rahman, Dr Abed Choudhury, Anamul Mukul and Kamrul Ahsan Khan spoke in the Rally and share their experience in a meeting at the Community Hall.

  

A delegation from the rally handed over a 'Memorandum addressed to the Secretary General of the UN' to the local ACT UN office. A copy of the Memorandum has also been given officially for the attention of the Prime Minister of Bangladesh through Bangladesh High Commission Counsellor Mr Nazrul Islam in Canberra, Australia.

A petition in support of the Memorandum was also signed by members of the community. PriyoAustrlia launched an online petition campaign in support of the Memorandum and action plan for Bangladesh.

 

The Sydney rally was held in Hyde Park and the Canberra rally was held outside the Regional office of the United Nations.

 

 

Sydney Rally

 

The congregation started at 4:00pm at the Hyde Park, Sydney and the Rally at 4:30pm. At the beginning, Mr Nazrul Islam, most senior Bangladeshi born Australian citizen, gave a short speech on Climate Change. Following this Dr Swapan Paul elaborated the purpose of the rally and briefly outlined the list of demands to the UN. The rally concluded at 5:00pm. A large number of non resident Bangladeshi's (NRB's) participated in the rally and has drawn attention of a huge number of Sydney-siders and the Park users.

 

 

 

 

Other part of the World

 

Rallies were also held in the United States, Japan, and Bangladesh. In the United States the rally was held in front of the United Nation (UN) headquarters in New York on the eve of the annual General Assembly session.

 

 

Key messages in the memorandum included:

 

·        Bangladesh is not responsible for causing climate change

·        Bangladesh will be the worst victim of climate change

·        Climate Change has already started to affect Bangladesh

·        Developed countries have to take the responsibility

·        Unsatisfactory performance of developed countries so far

·        Climate assistance can set the direction of Bangladesh's energy path

·        Adopt 350 ppm as the stabilization goal

·        Developed countries undertake the main role in achieving the 350 ppm target

·        Developed countries provide necessary climate change related financial and technological assistance

·        Provide immigration rights to climate refugees

·        Climate assistance funds be placed under UNFCCC and provided as budgetary support grants

·        Developed countries provide necessary technological support

·        Commends the United Nations 

·        Declares their support for further strengthening of the UN role 

·        Wishes success to the UNFCCC process

 

For media enquiries contact:

Kamrul Ahsan Khan (0401683930) Coordinator

BEN Australia chapter

BEN Websites:

http://priyoaustralia.com.au/ben          http://www.ben-center.org

 

 



 
Kamrul Ahsan Khan
 
0401683930 (Mobile)


http://www.ben-center.org




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