Strike that serves no one\\\'s interest

Dhaka's traffic system is messy. It got messier with the capital's 13,000 compressed natural gas-run auto-rickshaws observing strike on Tuesday as part of the 72-hour strike they called. They have threatened an indefinite strike if their demands are not met. In a further development they have postponed their strike until June 09 next, perhaps showing their readiness for a negotiated settlement. Now their demand concerns nothing extraordinary as the report suggests. They are fed up with the bureaucratic indecision. The majority of the gas-driven three-wheelers have either completed or about to complete their 11-year economic lifespan. But except a handful of them, they are in a perfect condition. None other than the Mechanical Engineering Department of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology, after requisite tests, recommended that the vehicles could easily run for another four years. This recommendation was made six months ago. Convinced, a nine-member committee formed by the ministry of communications (MoC) also agreed to go by the recommendation. Unlike the taxi-cabs which became ramshackle and risky for plying on roads, these auto-rickshaws have shown no sign of aging. If they can retain road-worthiness for another four years, why force them off the road?

So far no drive by the traffic police against the vehicle has been reported. Then what has prompted the Dhaka Metropolitan CNG-run Auto-rickshaw Malik Samity Oikya Parishad to go a strike like this? Maybe, they are anticipating a sudden swoop on the vehicle soon because no decision has yet been reached on the basis of the BUET recommendation and the suggestion made by the committee constituted by the MoC. Until the vehicles were put to the BUET test, things proceeded in the right direction but then the administrative hiccup has led to this undesirable confrontation. One wonders, why this was allowed to go out of hand. The authorities concerned could very well invite the Malik Samity to a negotiation and resolve the matter amicably. Or, even an announcement of no action by the traffic police against vehicles on the street could be enough to put off the strike. Neither of these was done. Thus the government indecision becomes suspect whether it is involuntary or there is more to the silence.

Commuters in the capital have bitter experience of the long process of introduction of taxi-cab service. It has taken more than a year to press into service a new version of the service. But those 'advanced and luxurious' taxis are conspicuous by their absence. They have proved too little and too late. Also the exorbitant fare and other related costs to be borne by passengers discourage the prospective ones mostly in the bracket of middle class and lower middle class. If the authorities now create another vacuum in the emergency transportation for such people, their sufferings will know no bounds. Also its economic implication will prove highly costly for families of the drivers as well as the owners of such vehicles. Movement of people and goods are directly related to production and economic development. On that count, the three-wheelers at times prove most handy because they can somehow wriggle through the labyrinth of Dhaka traffic and take someone to the intended destination faster than any other vehicle. So before the situation escalates to a point of no return, the dispute should be resolved in the interests of all.