The sight of cars being jacked and locked on the streets of Dhaka city has become an everyday phenomenon. Any person roaming inside the city must have experienced this spectacle in recent days. This incident takes place when the car owners or the drivers park them at unauthorized or inappropriate places. Undoubtedly, it has become an absolute necessity that these cars should be parked properly at proper places. But are there enough suitable places for parking cars in the city? Moreover, are the traffic police actually doing their duties to reduce traffic jam or to control the unethical behaviour of the car owners? A big question lies behind their actions.
Hundreds of cars are newly entering the streets of Dhaka every day. They are running on the streets paying the road tax and all other government fees. But our government can neither control the traffic on the streets nor can arrange proper parking places for these cars. In spite of that, more and more cars are being brought to the streets. We do not have proper planning for developing our city till now. Most of the offices, schools, hospitals and markets do not have proper and sufficient parking places for the visitors. Where should the car owners park their cars then? They definitely need to complete their works and they also need to use the vehicle which they obtained with their hard-earned money. But they are hassled everyday for that.
Few days ago, in front of Lab Aid hospital at Dhanmondi, a family arrived in a rush as a close relative of theirs was on death bed. They tried to park their car at insufficient hospital parking and very logically could not find a spot. They talked to a guard of the hospital and, following his suggestion, parked the car on the street alongside the hospital building. When they returned from the hospital with a heavy heart, they found their car with a yellow clamp on its wheels and no one around. The traffic sergeant has done his 'noble' duty by locking the car and disappeared. After 30 minutes, the great officer was located and he claimed fifteen hundred taka from the car owner. The car owner explained him the situation elaborately but no sympathy was shown by the officer. The car owner had to pay the fine as, according to the officer, the car owner's behaviour was irresponsible and illegal. But who actually is liable for the actions of the car owner? I think, first of all, it is the government and then the hospital authority.
This above mentioned hospital is visited by thousands of patients and their relatives every day. The hospital barely can arrange parking for around fifty cars as they have to park their own cars too. But the government has permitted to build such a big hospital with almost no parking facility and the hospital authority also does not feel any urge to arrange parking for their clients and visitors. What should the visitors with cars do? There is probably no authority including the traffic officials who can answer this question. As a result, we need to pay the penalty for a crime committed by us, which we never actually intended to commit.
One of the busiest commercial areas of Dhaka is Motijheel. Hundreds of bank offices are located on almost all major streets here. None of these banks have any parking space for the clients. Two to three days ago, I found a woman begging a traffic sergeant to release her car, who in call of his noble profession locked her car with beautiful yellow clamps while she was inside the bank performing an emergency task. Her driver was trying to find a proper parking spot dropping his owner. When he was doing so, the traffic police arrived and blocked his way like a superhero. The officer did not allow him to move, may be from his devotion towards work and took the papers of his car and asked for a fine of fifteen hundred taka to release the car. The woman kept asking the sergeant where she should park her car while visiting the bank. The officer gently remained silent to that.
Parking on the streets of Dhaka city is not a new problem as it is persistent for last five to six years. The government has made some parking places in some places, like the City Centre at Motijheel, and grudgingly left their sign of immaturity in planning a proper arrangement. From my visit to the City Centre and also from conversations with some car owners I found that the ramps of these multi-storied car parking facilities are too risky as there are some major architectural faults. It is very difficult to park a car at Level 7 or 8 if the drivers are not very experienced and skilled. Moreover, the users face grave discomfort as there is no elevator facility for them. If someone parks car at a higher level, then he has to climb the ramps to reach his car again, which is exceedingly hectic for most of the car owners as well as the drivers. The building authority has booked almost the first six floors with the cars of the offices located at their building. So, for the visitors of the surrounding area, there is no other way but to parking the cars at the highest floors with the utmost physical challenges. Moreover, from any context, the parking fee is very high. So, is this car parking facility providing any benefit to the people visiting Motijheel? Just visit that place for once and the answer will be ready.
Every day, hundreds of cars are parked on the main road and by-lanes around the City Centre and those difficult floors for parking on the building remain empty. It is a shame that, we cannot blame the car owners for not using the City Centre car parking facility. But, according to some sufferers, the City Centre authority takes an acute measure to make the people bound to do that. They co-ordinate with the traffic authority to appear with those yellow clamps to lock the cars parked on the by-lanes around the City Centre. Traffic sergeants come happily and heroically to do the justice by penalising the car owners and forcing them to park inside the City Centre without feeling any shame of failing to bring any convenience to the people. If someone tries to explain the problems to these traffic officers, they become numb and sometimes arrogant. You can escape their extreme dedication to duties only if you have connections with very top officials. So, there is no justification from any party and there is no effort to bring comfort to the citizens' life and in result, we, the people suffer.
Now, a question comes to our mind: why traffic officials become so active in locking the cars parked on the streets or lanes despite being well known for their ineffective and inefficient performance all around the country? The answer is very simple. A large portion of the fines collected from these actions is directly rewarded to the traffic officials. So, they collectively try to bring more and more money by bolting the vehicles on the streets and the officers on duty are often pushed by their top officials to act so rough to the car owners. Their actions are often very negative in nature. Their attitude and body language can only remind us of villains of our cinema. The way they block a car and stand in front of it can only bring a glimpse of a brutal criminal on our mind. But, we are completely helpless in front of this new form of terror on the streets of Dhaka.
From a study of this whole situation, a few things are inevitable to conclude. First of all, the government could not provide any feasible solution to the problem of parking cars on the streets of Dhaka city and the vehicle owners and drivers suffer for this failure in spite of paying all sorts of taxes, including road tax, every year. Secondly, the traffic officials are working brutally and constantly creating a negative image on the mind of the citizens by harassing them on the streets through clamping down their vehicles and these actions of the traffic police are completely driven by their thrust for money rather than an effort to create a comfortable traffic environment for the citizens. Lastly, the practice of unaccountability in the operations of our law enforcement agencies is constantly raising the concerns of the people and they are getting more brutal every day. These traffic officials cannot be considered as our friends from any angle. In spite of all these negativities, we still are hopeful that Bangladesh will become golden Bangladesh in its true sense someday, where we will not be terrorized and harassed by the law enforcing officials on the streets and they will work for the welfare of the citizens. I plead to the authority concerned to look after this matter. I believe we still can have some hope for hassle-free streets.
What do the Mayors do?
Now Dhaka, a city of 16 million people which is more chaotic, undisciplined, less law abiding from any other megacities in the world, has two 'state of the art' Mayors fully equipped with government support and blessings of the business community. They have already done some eye-catching things, like clearing illegally occupied land in the city, on-site inspection of garbage cleaning and pledging to improve other services soon. But they should turn to the parking problem as one of the top priorities and solve this problem using all their might. If they fail, they should ask the police not to harass car owners and drivers until they have a magic solution to the sharply deteriorating menace.
Ordinary citizens should not suffer for the fault of others.
Kaushik Ahmed is Chief News Editor, Mohammadi News Agency