Staff Reporter :
Asian Development Bank (ADB) Vice-President (VP) Wencai Zhang expressed interest to cooperate for mitigating traffic congestion problem in Bangladesh on Wednesday.
Wencai Zhang had come to join Bangladesh Development Forum (BDF) inauguration ceremony and stacked in the traffic congestion for an hour to reach the hotel from the Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport (HSIA) on Tuesday night and expressed such interest in his speech in the inauguration ceremony.
The Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Finance minister Abul Mal Abdul Muhith, among others, were present in the inauguration ceremony of BDF.
Besides infrastructure bottlenecks, the traffic congestion of Dhaka city is also considered as a barrier to attract investment and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to the country.
According to a report of World Bank published in July 2017, traffic congestion and slow pace of vehicle movement in Dhaka roads cost 32 lakhs working hours. In last 10 years, the average speed of vehicle movement was reduced to 7 kilometers (km) per hour from 21 kms per hour.
A research report by Poribesh Andolan Bangladesh 2014 revealed that due to traffic congestion about 80 lakhs working hours get spoiled per day in Dhaka roads.
In another research report of Bangladesh Roads and High ways Department of 2013 revealed that not only valuable working hours are spoiling but also costing financial loss of Tk 12,000 crore annually.
Despite building several flyovers in Dhaka, people are still suffering from the problems of heavy traffic congestions and not receiving the benefits of building flyovers.
The number of roads in the Dhaka city had increased by five percent from the year 1995 to 2005. On the other hand, vehicle movement had increased by 134 percent and population increased by 50 percent.
