Dhaka City's Transportation Problem :Is there any solution ?
- Part 4 -

Prof. Bijon B. Sarma *

Even though the apartment buildings constructed in Bangladesh at the initial stage may get longer life, the recently built buildings may not be that lucky. We can explain the reason here. Nowadays, the developers treat and use apartment buildings as "salable commodity". Earlier apartment buildings were constructed at the initiative of a number of owners, who used to sell the excess units to outsiders.

Naturally the owners in their own interest used to place utmost importance on the life and safety of the building. But after such buildings have turned to "salable commodities" the developer's interest lies in increasing the difference between cost of construction and sale of units.

After the sale is complete the developer is relieved from all responsibilities including the life of the building. The developer knows that good finishing fetch good price and defects like (i) use of less water in curing, (ii) less cement in mortar, (iii) old or inadequate bars in concrete can never be detected after the building has been finished. The developer can easily lessen the cost of construction in the following ways :

(i) Inadequate structural design,
(ii) Excellent structural design, but less use of materials during construction,
(iii) Defective system of construction.

For example, curing or 'application of water at proper time' ensures strength of concrete. Life and strength of concrete depends upon proportion of cement and sand. It is possible for a developer to make money by ignoring these factors, where the prospective buyers have no scope to know those.

In the above situation it is possible that the apartments treated as "salable commodity" would get lesser life-span. Now let us see what may happen after a building is collapsed. Let us say, a building with 40 owners has collapsed ten years after construction. Now say, the number of owners by this time has increased to 60.

Considering the realities including loopholes in our judiciary, is there any possibility that these 60 owners would be able to organize themselves and take a program for the reconstruction of the building ? The inevitable reality is to sell the land to the companies at negotiated price. And that also would be possible if none of the 60 owners come up with any law suit regarding ownership.

In the above situation it is logical and at the same time very easy for the government to introduce Social Housing. Also the situation is ripe for it. For example, in Dhanmondi the land has been given lease for 99 years. After the expiry of this period the government may introduce social housing here. Most of the buildings in Azimpur government housing society are now in dilapidated condition.

In place of repairing, the government can take a program of providing social housing here. In this endeavor the government may go for construction of 20 or more storied apartment buildings with no less than 100 ft inter-building distance. When used in social housing concept the government can collect considerable rent from such buildings. The most encouraging thing on the part of the government will be, the government can declare that for the first time in the history of this sub-continent they could ignore and go beyond the colonial tradition of providing accommodation for the government servants only.

We have explained how hundreds or thousands of apartment-owners are being deprived of the concept of "permanent asset" in their "salable commodity". We have also explained how the house owners get the scope of living in the city, even when they are not essential here. Introduction of "Social Housing" can efficiently take care of both these problems.

02. Macro and Micro level administrative decisions by the Urban Authorities : In the Macro-level solution, the urban authorities may decide on the manageable physical extent of Dhaka city. At present the land enclosed by the waters of Buriganga, Sitalakhya and Turag rivers may be taken to be maximum manageable extent of the city. This region may be called Central Dhaka.

Then, its extensions on the other banks of the rivers may be termed as Dhaka East, Dhaka North etc. These sub-regions should be developed as independent cities in points of utilities, infra-structure and socio-economic facilities. Large bodied vehicles like inter-district bus, train, steamship etc. should not be allowed beyond the water barrier of the central city. Also all vehicles entering Central Dhaka should be subjected to payment of toll.

It should be noted here that unless a suitable mechanism for controlling the vehicles coming from all corners of the country can be developed, all endeavors for solving transportation problem, whatever expensive or unique those might be, would fail. In Micro-level solution, the urban authorities may go for recreating the "Wards". Now Ward, the mini-administrative area of the city cannot be physically identified.

In the new system of demarcation, the authority would take the chunk of urban areas enclosed by wide roads on all sides and none of such roads would be longer than 2 kilometers. Each of the wards will be numbered and given a name. Then the population of each ward will be enumerated.

On the basis of this number the authorities would find out the required number of essential services like
(i) Medical and healthcare centre,
(ii) Financial institutions,
(iii) One stop bill payment booth,
(iv) Children's school,
(v) Vegetable fish meat market,
(vi) Medicine shop,
(vii) Community centre,
(viii) Postal or Courier and parcel service points,
(ix) Repair shop for household gadgets etc.

After finalizing the number the authority would invite information from the existing establishments. Then the urban authority would give recognition to the requisite number of such establishments on the basis of their facilities and locations. The recognized establishments would be allowed to continue activities at reduced tax, where as others would have to pay taxes at enhanced rate.

This rule would help to establish the required number of facilities, and at the same time, eliminate the excess ones from each ward. As soon as the inhabitants would find their essential facilities within 2 kilometers (which is within walking limit of Bangladesh) they would use fewer vehicles for availing these purposes. Inside each Ward, user-friendly vehicles like cycle, trolley etc. should be encouraged and entry of bus, truck etc. should be restricted and controlled.

03. Physical developments:

(a) FOOTPATH : The urban authorities should place immense importance on footpath. Those should be constructed with specifications to satisfy the following : (i) Peoples' easy walking, (ii) Kids' normal travel and also in perambulator, (iii) Movement of handicapped persons wheel chair and (iv) People's movement with loaded trolleys. In all possible cases those should be covered with soft or hard roof.

(b) FOOT OVER BRIDGE : The travel time in the urban area can be shortened by speedy vehicles. Such movements however, cause road accidents. It is interesting that even though Dhaka city is at present experiencing tremendous traffic jam resulting in slow movement, there is meager road accident. It has been observed that during long holidays when the traffic in the city decreases and the cars move at speed there happen accidents. Since our endeavor is to shorten travel time, we have to ensure quicker velocity of vehicles. In order to ensure that the urban authorities would have to construct foot-over bridge at regular intervals. In all possible cases these should be covered to protect people during inclement weather.

04. Transport management: In a democratic country the government cannot discourage people from using cars. However, it is crystal clear that the narrow and inadequate roads of Dhaka city in no way can sustain the cars already owned by the present population, not to say anything about their future number, taking into account the increase of population allowable under the provisions made by the urban authorities. In such a situation the solution is to ensure such type of alternate arrangement that even the owners would prefer to use those.

As part of this program superior quality school buses need be introduced at subsidized rate for the children. Staff buses with only two-times-per-day use is in no way economic for Bangladesh and it should be discouraged by imposing heavy tax. Quite often it is said that introduction of luxury buses would be able to discourage use of cars. This is partly correct.

As a matter of fact such buses in no way would be able to attract the car owners, unless there is efficient and comfortable system of (i) Ticketing, (ii) Waiting, (iii) Boarding and (iv) Time-maintaining provisions. Vesting all these in the hands of the profit-hungry transport businessmen can never ensure the expected goal. The government would have to treat it as a service sector and manage things, where the vehicles may be owned by private owners but management will be done by the government.

CONCLUSION :

As of now the story of the Bangladesh government's failure to solve the transportation problem of Dhaka city is a story discussed even by the kids. Every time a new government rises to power it promises to solve it and declares some programs. At times they impose restrictions, mostly on the movement of vehicles used by the poor, spends considerably on physical developments that might help the rich class. In the long run, however, it is seen that in place of solving, those have further complicated the problem. Also, the inquiry team formed by the contemporary government reveals corruption and kick-back cases of the previous government.

Now, Bangladesh is being ruled by the government formed by Bangladesh Awami League and its allies. They have won landslide victory in the election held in 2009. As usual, this government also has revealed some corruptions of the previous government in this sector. Following the suit of their predecessors they have expressed promises and declared programs for solution.

With their previous experiences the common people of the country and specially the suffering population of Dhaka city know, their promises and programs are going to meet the previous fate. It really is destined to be so, because never before any government felt for in-depth analysis of this extremely complicated problem.

We have endeavored to raise the issues related with this extremely complicated problem. The limited page of the paper does not allow detail discussion. We have endeavored to mention the vital and decisive points, without the consideration of which such a complicated problem cannot be solved. If seen superficially some of the points may seem to be of secondary or tertiary importance. A second thought however would reveal that those are quite important. Ignoring these in fact resulted in the failures of the previous programs.

It may be seen that the proposals we have placed above is not at all expensive in comparison with what the government at times suggest. One may easily imagine the enormous cost of flyovers, expressways, mono-rails, metro etc. These solutions would in no way reduce the travel time and expenditure of the people.

In our proposal there is no proposal for such physical development. Even though some of our proposal may seem costly for the time being, those might prove economic in the long run. Thus shifting of the ministries from Dhaka city to a distant divisional city might seem "costly" now. But after the shifting has taken place the government may discover that running this ministry in that location is much cheaper than doing the same in Dhaka.

Arrangements for lessening the need for journey by arranging or re-arranging the necessities near to the place of living, encouraging people to walk on easier footpaths etc. would lessen people's dependence on cars and buses. And that would save huge foreign currency of this poor the country that is now spent in import of cars, buses, spare parts and fuels.

In materializing our proposal what the government needs is not money, but courage and honesty. They would need democratic and mission-like mentality to break apart the colonial traditions. Let us hope the present government would be able to show that.

The various ways and means of solving transportation problem by using less number of vehicles is something that the physical planners of Bangladesh would have to "invent" by themselves. They would not get any assistance in this endeavor from the developed countries, because such measures go highly against their car-related business.

Bangladesh is a poor country with excess of population and no dearth of problems. For such a country failure in any costly program may prove fatal. We hope, in view of their numerous failures in the past, we believe and request that this time the concerned authorities would strive for hinest and intelligent solutions.

This paper is available from the link : (SSRN, New York, USA)

Concluded.....