Hundreds of vehicles and rickshaws with students and their guardians rush to the schools located in Dhanmondi in the morning, creating gridlocks in all the roads.

Sumaiya Jahan, a student of Asian University at Dhanmondi, said she has to get stuck in traffic congestion at Jigatola intersection for about half an hour every day. "It takes more than an hour to reach my university from Hazaribagh due to traffic jam," she said.

"I have to leave home with at least 40-50 extra minutes in hand to attend my morning classes as I know that I will be stuck near Jigatola at least for half an hour," she added.

The situation is worse near the Dhanmondi-15 intersection as some well-known English medium schools and private universities are located in this area.

Not just students, office goers living in Dhanmondi and neighbouring areas get stuck in the jam every morning. Those coming from Mohammadpur face the traffic problem on Dhanmondi road 27 and 28. "I have to walk around a quarter mile to reach my office in Dhanmondi," said Mahin Chowdhury, who lives in Bashbari in Mohammadpur area.

The traffic situation gets worse in the afternoon when most schools finish and the students along with their guardians start for home, in private cars as well as rickshaws.

"Hundreds of cars and rickshaws crowd the roads in front of the schools at this time. Most of the cars, taxicabs and CNG autorickshaws are parked occupying large parts of the roads," said Md Mubarak Hussain, a resident of Lalmatia.

The commuters face the gridlocks in front of Meena Bazar and Shop & Save superstores, Dhaka Presidency College, Stamford University, Star Kabab and Northern University because of unwanted parking on the roads by customers and students.

The roads in front of the schools on road 27 and 15 gets almost blocked during the start and finishing of the school hours with cars parked occupying more than half of the road.

"We applied to Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) for constructing a foot over-bridge in front of our school. But we have not received positive response as some of the house owners in the locality opposed the idea," said Mostafa Kamal, a senior teacher of Kakoli High school.

This correspondent visited Satmasjid Road from Jigatola to Sangkar and found 'no parking' signs in almost every school, college, university and shopping mall, but in reality the scene was totally opposite.

"It is not our responsibility to see if traffic rules are violated by our students and guardians," said a high official of Stamford University at Dhanmondi 15.

Locals blame guardians of students for creating traffic congestion in Dhanmondi. "If they park their vehicles near the main road, the situation would be better," said the owner of a house near an English medium school at Dhanmondi 27.

But the parents do not agree with such suggestion. Nazmun Ara, whose two kids read in Oxford International School at Dhanmondi road 27, said: "My children get tired after school hours, so I don't want them to walk in the sun from school gate to the main road."

Though some schools have bus services for students but a very few guardians are willing to take the opportunity. Ashraful Alam, a guardian said, "I have my own car. Why would I don't want to send my children in school bus? I think my child will be safer in my car."

An on-duty traffic police sergeant on road 27, who was desperately trying to manage the traffic all by himself, said to this correspondent that it is simply impossible to do anything from 8 in the morning till 2 pm.

"Dhanmondi residents must realise that only they can solve the crisis. They have to be more aware of their responsibilities. The authority alone can do nothing", he added.