The New Nation - Internet Edition

THE Chief Adviser has directed the utility agencies and all others to stop works on the roads of Dhaka city during the rainy season. Road diggings are not completed in the dry season when the works can be done faster and creating less traffic hazards. After all, people of this city have been witnesses to indiscriminate road diggings year after year in the peak of the rainy season when delays stretch the works and cost more money from the national exchequer. This culture needs to be stopped. Also, road digging for development works should be coordinated to use resources optimally and keep the roads well paved on a long lasting basis.

Government organisations are frequently seen digging and redigging roads at busy points. Such activities go on in roulette fashion round the year. Besides, roads are frequently dug up to widen dividers, shorten those or even to completely do away with medians. This is also repeated again and again. Citizens wonder why a median has to be built, wrecked and then rebuilt. Why, once built, structures do not last at least for some years. Inconveniences to people in the city can be reduced while substantial saving of resources can be achieved if the utility bodies are obliged to coordinate their activities.

Either the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) or the Ministry of Local Government should ensure this coordination. Why this coordination is not attempted is a burning question in citizens' minds. Citizens or taxpayers are one in demanding from the government that this matter should be taken up from the highest level of the government with a view to ending this frightful drain of resources from the public purse. This is all the more needed to reduce inconveniences caused to the members of the traveling public.