Staff Reporter :The High Court (HC) has asked the government to immediately remove illegal structures within 10 metres of highways across the country.It also ordered the government to set up dividers on the highways to prevent road accidents.A HC bench comprising Justice Zinat Ara and AKM Shahidul Huq passed the order while delivering the judgment on a writ petition on Monday.Human Rights and Peace for Bangladesh filed the petition after 11 people were killed in a road accident in Faridpur in 2011.Advocate Manzil Murshid of Human Rights and Peace filed the petition as a public interest litigation seeking necessary directives for the HC to prevent road accidents.The court also asked the authorities concerned to amend the highway-related rules so that no structure can be built beside the highways.The court also asked the authorities concerned to take a step to amend the rules fixing Secondary School Certificate (SSC) as the minimum educational qualification for drivers. The government will have to implement the rules after five years, the court said.Official sources said, over 100 structures have been constructed illegally on the Dhaka-Chittagong and Dhaka-Sylhet highways, while several hundred illegal structures have also been built on the Dhaka-Tangail, Dhaka-Mymensingh and Dhaka-Aricha highways. “A powerful quarter has built hundreds of unauthorised structures encroaching significant portion of major highways, causing disruption in smooth traffic flow and road accidents,” a senior Roads and Highway Department (R&HD) official told The New Nation on Monday, asking not to be named.Apart from these unauthorised structures, he said, a total of 16 markets–four under Dhaka Division and two each in six other divisions–on both sides of the highways were identified by the department. These have been established illegally on roadsides. “Our (R&HD) Department conducted eviction drives against such illegal structures and markets time to time with the help of local police. But the encroachers returned to their business on the highways soon after completion of the eviction drive. They are enjoying patronisation from the powerful quarter,” he added.He further said that eviction drives by the roads and highway department may not bear any fruit unless the government takes stringent measures against the sponsors of the illegal structures and markets on the highways. Earlier, the government decided to remove all the illegal structures built on both sides on the regional highways to reduce road accident and smooth traffic movement. “A special taskforce will be deployed to remove illegal structures from highways for free movement of vehicles and reduce road accident,” said Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader.He also told the Parliament that a total of 45,495 people lost their lives in road accidents over the last 15 years.According to Bangladesh Police Department, there were 55,316 road accidents over the last 15 years.
