Mishaps in transportation sector, especially on road, rail and inland waterways, have become common all over the country. Several bus accidents, rail mishaps and passenger water-vessel disasters that are happening across the country on a regular basis are killing more than a thousand people each year and injuring several thousands more.
The bus accidents occur due to reckless driving, speeding, driving by inexperience drivers, carrying passengers in excess of its capacity and operating buses that had been assessed as unfit by the authority. The inland water transport accidents happen because of overloading and faulty design. The casualties in rail accidents are probably much lower compared to road and water vessel accidents. The rail accidents happen generally due to derailment and crashes at crossings due to lack of barriers, negligence or absence of guard at the crossings.
Regardless of whether accidents happen on road, rail or inland waterways, from the nature of the accidents one can easily realise that the accidents occur due to lack of proper monitoring by the authority. Thus, accidents in the transport sector can be easily prevented if the authority conducts strict and rigorous monitoring in the transport sector.
However, whenever the authority is questioned about the reason for lack of monitoring, it is due to lack of manpower. Often they are not able to conduct strict monitoring at all times and the transport operators take advantage of this lack of monitoring to violate laws related to passenger safety.
On the other hand, from media reports it is known that a significant part of the youth population is currently jobless. When a vacancy for a job is announced, the number of applicants is several times more than the posts. A research also identifies that unemployment rate among graduates in Bangladesh maybe the highest in South Asia.
Thus, on the one hand due to lack of manpower, the authority is not able to conduct monitoring in the transport sector, on the other there is a huge number of jobless youth.
Rather than complaining about lack of manpower as an excuse for their negligence in conducting their duties the authorities should increase manpower by utilising the jobless youths properly. This will help reduce unemployment rate and improve the socio-economic condition of the youth. The authority will be able to monitor effectively. Hopefully, this may help reduce the wrongdoings by transport operators.
The issue of absence of monitoring due to lack of manpower does not only exist in the transportation sector but in other areas as well. For example, due to lack of monitoring attributed to lack of manpower, the authority is unable to prevent use of formalin and harmful chemicals in food, food adulteration etc.
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