The way Eid ul Azha passengers in all modes of transports are suffering on their way back home in roads, rails and waterways this year clearly speaks of the fact that the government’s relevant entities were not serious about safe and smooth travel of the passengers. During the last Eid ul Fitr, the government employees got nine days of leave at a stretch and as the home-bound people started to leave the capital much earlier, passengers as a whole did not have to go through serious problem.
Like the last Eid, in this Eid also, the prime minister by her executive power has transferred a working day (today) of government employees to the first Saturday after the Eid vacation totaling the vacation six days long, but the step evidently has failed to impact on the home-bound people’s movement. The heavy rush of people going to different destinations of the country began after the last working day on Thursday and right from that time, all modes of transport are found crammed with people.
The greater number of buses on the roads, vessels on the waterways and trains has hit all the routes from that time also and this has created huge jams on the roads, trains’ schedules broken and launches dangerously crowded. This season as troubles have been created at the Daulatdia terminal with Paturia terminal on the other side washed away by river erosion, roads to northern districts are witnessing long tailbacks causing immense sufferings to the people on board the vehicles.
Any crash programme now could hardly improve the scenario with two days remaining before the festival and the people seem to be doomed to suffer this Eid. But still, presence of enough number of law enforcers on the highways can indeed stop the jams go even more out of control because, drivers now are usually seen violating traffic rules and driving rashly. Law enforcers must be there to discipline the traffic at the
very last.
Now the government’s relevant authorities must learn from this Eid’s sufferings and since managing smooth travel of people in all modes of transport is a gigantic task, they ought to make short- and long-term plans to face the challenge. One long-term solution to improve the situation is by expanding the two-lane highways into four-lane ones. This plan has to be taken up immediately so that after some years problem of inadequate infrastructure could be fairly solved. Then it is necessary to have double rail lines and more number of trains to cope with the increasing numbers of passengers. Short-term efforts must include removing unfit launches and buses from operation.