Sagar Biswas :
Long tailbacks on the highways continued unabated on Saturday mainly due to the poor traffic management with causing immense sufferings to the homebound passengers just two days ahead of the Eid-ul Azha.
Country’s highways yesterday experienced season’s heaviest traffic while thousands of city dwellers, especially working class people and service holders, largely the employees of ready-made garments sector, made their journey for homes to enjoy the Eid holiday.
The sufferings started at Jatrabari crossing, the junction of several highways towards the southeastern and northeastern districts, as it took at least one to two hours to cross the area for the inter-district buses and other vehicles.
On the other hand, the passengers of furthest northern and southern districts faced severe problem when vehicles along with thousands of passengers were stranded at Gazipur-Chandina crossing for several hours mainly due to negligence of the traffic authorities.
In this situation, Minister for Road Transport and Bridges Obaidul Quader has expressed his sorrow and also apologized from the passengers for their sufferings.
“I’m not at all happy about the overall situation of gridlock and condition of highways. I beg my pardon to the home goers for their sufferings ahead of Eid,” he said yesterday.
The Minister, however, blamed some accidents for the worst traffic jam on Dhaka-Tangail highway for the last two days. In fact, the vehicles were rolled very slowly on all the national highways including Dhaka-Chittagong, Dhaka-Sylhet, Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka-Aricha, Dhaka-Moulvibazar, Dhaka-Habiganj and Dhaka-Noakhali.
Traffic movement was also very slow on the regional highways including Dhaka-Kishoreganj, Dhaka-Comilla, Dhaka- Mymensingh and Dhaka-Narsingdi resulting hours-long severe gridlock.
Of them, the people travelling to the furthest northern regions including Rangpur and Dinajpur were in severe trouble as it took almost three times more time to reach their destinations.
Babul Hossain, a resident of Kalabagan, who went to his village home at Dinajpur, yesterday said over telephone that it took 21 hours to reach his destination. “It took over 10/11 hours only to cross Ashulia- Chandra-Tangail and Jamuna Bridge. The sufferings were untold for my kids and wife. There was no food and water on the way,” he said.
When contacted, DIG Highway Md Asaduzzaman Mia said, “The tailback is tolerable today. We have taken enough measures to keep the highways free of traffic jam. I hope it will be usual within a short time.”
“Around 2, 40, 000 people are leaving the capital daily by buses. The number of passengers would be higher if overloading is counted. So, there may be traffic jam,” said the general secretary of Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Federation Khandaker Enayetullah Khan.
Meanwhile, the city’s most inter-district bus terminals, including Gabtoli, Sayedabad and Mohakhali, were found overcrowded with homebound passengers yesterday, although the bus operators said they have already increased the number of daily trips.
Passengers alleged that the bus operators charged excess fare on every route. Even the fare of some short-distance routes, like Dhaka-Narsingdi, Dhaka-Kishoreganj, Dhaka- Sirajganj and Dhaka-Tangail, was also higher than normal time.
Sources said the passengers were charged almost three-times higher than usual in the long-distance routes like Dhaka-Chittagong Dhaka-Feni, Dhaka-Noakhali, Dhaka-Cox’s Bazar, Dhaka-Sylhet, Dhaka-Moulvibazar and Dhaka-Habiganj.
Many passengers were seen so desperate that they do not want to consider how unsafe or dangerous the journey was.
Ignoring safety measures, the marginal-income group homebound passengers were also seen travelling on empty and cargo-laden trucks.
