Dhaka’s air pollution is worsened by dust from construction and roadworks, requiring solutions.

If you visit Dhaka’s Gulshan, Banani and Baridhara areas nowadays, you will have to brace yourself for never-ending traffic, dust and mud. And there is always a risk that you may even fall into a ditch. The posh areas are now undergoing a development work including widespread road digging, which has led to this miserable situation.

Intermittent showers over the last few days have given the city residents a respite from dust pollution.

The High Court yesterday demanded an explanation from the authorities concerned as to what steps had been taken to prevent air pollution in four city corporation areas, including Dhaka north and south.

Once built, the 8.70km Moghbazar-Mouchak flyover is set to become a permanent woe for Dhaka, with leading experts describing the Tk 1,219 crore structure as a massive block in the heart of the city. Around a year into the construction work in early 2014, it was detected by sheer chance that the much-hyped flyover was being built on a grossly faulty layout configuration without vital right-turn provisions and had a number of other flaws with serious consequences.

In a bizarre incident, a garbage carrying truck of Dhaka North City Corporation dumped a large chunk of trash in front of a multinational bank's headquarters in the capital's Gulshan early yesterday. The authorities of Standard Chartered Bank (SCB) have expressed utter surprise at the noxious incident as they remain in the dark as to what triggered this.