M Abul Kalam Azad

Hold meetings, make decisions and then forget all about them. This has been the practice of successive governments regarding road safety in the past three decades. Since the mid-80s, each government has undertaken numerous initiatives to reduce road crashes, but they are gathering dust at the Road Transport and Bridges Ministry.

All the successive governments made moves to reform the civil service but none of them brought about the much-needed changes due to lack of political will and resistance from a section of bureaucrats.

Traffic from Banasree, Badda, Rampura, and Hatirjheel used to converge on Pragati Sarani near Rampura TV station and it was a messy affair. Commuters previously feared the intersection but now a cheap U-loop has made a huge difference.

The quota system in Bangladesh civil service is extremely complex and cannot be implemented ensuring proportionate representation of all sections of the society, according to two former top bureaucrats of the country.

Since the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in mid-2014, the brutal ideology of the militant outfit has ensnared hundreds of young Bangladeshis, like it has brainwashed youth from across the globe.

Opening of three new bridges on the Shitalakkhya, Meghna and Gumti rivers will reduce bottlenecks on Dhaka-Chittagong highway early next year.

RHD engineers and ministry officials who were involved with the project now squarely blame overloaded vehicles for the condition of the highway, known as the economic lifeline of Bangladesh. This highway is responsible for carrying 90 percent of the export and import volume.

City authorities have tried out a host of “solutions” to control chaotic traffic over the decades. The result? All the money went down the drain and the situation turned from bad to worse.