Phasing-out of old cars from city streets
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Shahiduzzaman Khan
LAX and irregular drives against unfit and over-aged vehicles continue to cause immense sufferings to the citizens. None other than a full minister told the parliament the other day that nearly 80,000 unfit vehicles were plying the roads in the capital. What is annoying about it is that both the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) are blaming each other for allowing the movement of unfit vehicles in the city.
The DMP said the BRTA was issuing fitness certificates to many unfit vehicles while the transport authorities said the police did not take any action against unfit vehicles despite repeated request for doing so. The BRTA authorities refund to admit a section of officers' involvement in issuing certificates to unfit vehicles in exchange for money. Yet it is a known fact that scores of middlemen or brokers are involved in managing licences, road permits and fitness certificates for vehicles from the agency.
Reports say the DMP commissioner, while admitting his agency's limitations in carrying out the drives against unfit vehicles, said that the DMP authorities have seized a large number of 20-year-old vehicles and later released them after the owners in undertaking gave an assurance that they would not run the vehicles in the city. He, however, said the DMP has no authority to force the owners of the vehicles to withdraw them from the city roads.
Transport analysts believe unfit vehicles plying on the city roads are much more higher than the figures quoted by the communications minister in Parliament. The president of the Association of Bus Companies said a large number of buses in the city were unfit but many of them had been given fitness certificates by corrupt officials of the BRTA. Most of such vehicles are in a frightening condition. Many of them do not have tail lights, indicator lights and even headlights and most of them have marks of accidents.
Besides contributing to city snarl-up, the old, run-down vehicles are also polluting the air, causing various diseases and respiratory problems, especially among the children, although the government has taken some measures to minimise environmental degradation. Air pollution, caused particularly by old vehicles, has made children vulnerable to asthma, pneumonia and other respiratory infections.
In a renewed move to ease traffic snarls and curb air pollution, the government has recently decided to withdraw about 1,00,000 vehicles, aged between 20 years and 25 years, from the capital from next July. The communications ministry has already found that 18,000 commercial passenger vehicles, all about 20 years old, and 78,000 commercial goods vehicles, over 25 years old, are still plying the city's streets.
Evidently the ban is expected to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion, due to which the city is gradually becoming inhabitable. The number of registered vehicles in the city is about 5,00,000 as per calculation of the Dhaka City Corporation's (DCC's) traffic department. The city's paved roads, which are 1,238 kilometres (kms) in length, have been undergoing growing pressure and cannot accommodate the huge number of vehicles of various nature and those which pass through it from other parts of the country.
A report of the Air Quality Management Project, a project of the World Bank, says air pollution in Dhaka is increasing rapidly and killing thousands prematurely each year. Old, poorly serviced vehicles, about 1,000 brick kilns, dust from roads and construction sites, and toxic fumes from industrial units are responsible for the growing air pollution. According to the Department of Environment, the density of airborne particulate matter reaches 463 micrograms per cubic metre in the city during the dry season (December-March), the highest level in the world! Mexico City and Mumbai follow Dhaka with 383 and 360mcm respectively.
The WHO's air quality guidelines (2005) recommend a maximum acceptable PM level of 20mcm. Cities with 70mcm are considered highly polluted. The phasing out of petrol-driven two-stroke auto-rickshaws in 2003 and their replacement with four-stroke versions, which use a much cleaner fuel (compressed natural gas), significantly decreased the volume of air contaminants. A sharp increase in the number of vehicles and construction sites in 2004-2009 led to a sharp deterioration of Dhaka's air quality.
In a desperate bid to curb the growth in the number of vehicles in a city that is being rapidly strangled by traffic congestion, the government is seriously thinking of imposing additional levy on persons who have more than one car. The ministry is expected to review the option of increasing the income tax and registration and fitness certificate fees for owners of more than one car in an inter-ministry meeting scheduled to be held this week.
Reports say more than 60 cars hit city's streets daily last year although only about 8.0 per cent of the capital's space has been left for vehicular movement, one-third of the essential space of 25 per cent. Experts suggest the number of large passenger vehicles be increased and more space left for pedestrians. Lack of quality buses and others transport facilities is forcing the middle-class people to purchase cars even if they have to take loans from banks at high interest rates.
It is thus expected that the government would introduce enough buses for both short and long distances to improve the situation arising out of chaotic traffic jams, train the traffic police, renovate dilapidated roads and then withdraw the old vehicles. Otherwise, the end result will be a total disaster.
szkhan@dhaka.net
LAX and irregular drives against unfit and over-aged vehicles continue to cause immense sufferings to the citizens. None other than a full minister told the parliament the other day that nearly 80,000 unfit vehicles were plying the roads in the capital. What is annoying about it is that both the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and the Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) are blaming each other for allowing the movement of unfit vehicles in the city.
The DMP said the BRTA was issuing fitness certificates to many unfit vehicles while the transport authorities said the police did not take any action against unfit vehicles despite repeated request for doing so. The BRTA authorities refund to admit a section of officers' involvement in issuing certificates to unfit vehicles in exchange for money. Yet it is a known fact that scores of middlemen or brokers are involved in managing licences, road permits and fitness certificates for vehicles from the agency.
Reports say the DMP commissioner, while admitting his agency's limitations in carrying out the drives against unfit vehicles, said that the DMP authorities have seized a large number of 20-year-old vehicles and later released them after the owners in undertaking gave an assurance that they would not run the vehicles in the city. He, however, said the DMP has no authority to force the owners of the vehicles to withdraw them from the city roads.
Transport analysts believe unfit vehicles plying on the city roads are much more higher than the figures quoted by the communications minister in Parliament. The president of the Association of Bus Companies said a large number of buses in the city were unfit but many of them had been given fitness certificates by corrupt officials of the BRTA. Most of such vehicles are in a frightening condition. Many of them do not have tail lights, indicator lights and even headlights and most of them have marks of accidents.
Besides contributing to city snarl-up, the old, run-down vehicles are also polluting the air, causing various diseases and respiratory problems, especially among the children, although the government has taken some measures to minimise environmental degradation. Air pollution, caused particularly by old vehicles, has made children vulnerable to asthma, pneumonia and other respiratory infections.
In a renewed move to ease traffic snarls and curb air pollution, the government has recently decided to withdraw about 1,00,000 vehicles, aged between 20 years and 25 years, from the capital from next July. The communications ministry has already found that 18,000 commercial passenger vehicles, all about 20 years old, and 78,000 commercial goods vehicles, over 25 years old, are still plying the city's streets.
Evidently the ban is expected to reduce air pollution and traffic congestion, due to which the city is gradually becoming inhabitable. The number of registered vehicles in the city is about 5,00,000 as per calculation of the Dhaka City Corporation's (DCC's) traffic department. The city's paved roads, which are 1,238 kilometres (kms) in length, have been undergoing growing pressure and cannot accommodate the huge number of vehicles of various nature and those which pass through it from other parts of the country.
A report of the Air Quality Management Project, a project of the World Bank, says air pollution in Dhaka is increasing rapidly and killing thousands prematurely each year. Old, poorly serviced vehicles, about 1,000 brick kilns, dust from roads and construction sites, and toxic fumes from industrial units are responsible for the growing air pollution. According to the Department of Environment, the density of airborne particulate matter reaches 463 micrograms per cubic metre in the city during the dry season (December-March), the highest level in the world! Mexico City and Mumbai follow Dhaka with 383 and 360mcm respectively.
The WHO's air quality guidelines (2005) recommend a maximum acceptable PM level of 20mcm. Cities with 70mcm are considered highly polluted. The phasing out of petrol-driven two-stroke auto-rickshaws in 2003 and their replacement with four-stroke versions, which use a much cleaner fuel (compressed natural gas), significantly decreased the volume of air contaminants. A sharp increase in the number of vehicles and construction sites in 2004-2009 led to a sharp deterioration of Dhaka's air quality.
In a desperate bid to curb the growth in the number of vehicles in a city that is being rapidly strangled by traffic congestion, the government is seriously thinking of imposing additional levy on persons who have more than one car. The ministry is expected to review the option of increasing the income tax and registration and fitness certificate fees for owners of more than one car in an inter-ministry meeting scheduled to be held this week.
Reports say more than 60 cars hit city's streets daily last year although only about 8.0 per cent of the capital's space has been left for vehicular movement, one-third of the essential space of 25 per cent. Experts suggest the number of large passenger vehicles be increased and more space left for pedestrians. Lack of quality buses and others transport facilities is forcing the middle-class people to purchase cars even if they have to take loans from banks at high interest rates.
It is thus expected that the government would introduce enough buses for both short and long distances to improve the situation arising out of chaotic traffic jams, train the traffic police, renovate dilapidated roads and then withdraw the old vehicles. Otherwise, the end result will be a total disaster.
szkhan@dhaka.net