Traffic Tyranny
When great minds get together, ideas fly. Saturday's meeting of minds at the CIRDAP auditorium also produced a number of suggestions to effectively eliminate an ever-growing menace - traffic congestion. Indeed, the organisers of the open discussion, the Dhaka Metropolitan Citizens Rights Forum, deserve a pat on the back. However, true reward for their efforts will come only if, and when, the people who matter weigh the suggestions set forth and act accordingly. We hope the authorities would, because they should.
Not all the remedies prescribed by the country's eminent elderly are new, though; time and again, at different seminars and symposia, similar suggestions have been set forth, obviously failing to make much ground on the inert minds of the authorities. Also, not all of them solicit immediate effect. However, there are some that surely attract attention to issues hitherto unaddressed and thus unattended. We strongly support Barrister Amirul Islam's call for accountability and transparency of RAJUK. We believe that people have the right to know what goes on inside the erstwhile DIT Building and the RAJUK should be accountable for every step it takes. We also chime in with Islam's censure of the way some residential and industrial areas have been rezoned without public hearing. At the same breath, we endorse Dr. Fasihuddin Mahtab's view on decentralisation of business and jobs to satellite townships to ease the traffic pressure.
We believe that compliance of extant traffic rules can go a long way towards mitigation of the problem. We have to make the citizens go by the rules, either by sensitisation or enforcement. We believe that is of utmost importance. If Calcutta can elevate itself from being one of the clumsiest cities in the region to one of the most disciplined, why can't we? Surely we can. All it needs is an orchestrated effort from the think-tanks, the enforcers and the public.
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