City roads clogged up by illegal parking

It is not merely a case of lack of enforcement because the police has been very active in filing cases against illegal parking (about 150,000 cases filed every month) in the city and no amount of fining will make the problem go away. We have hundreds of thousands of motorised and non-motorised vehicles plying the city's roads and there aren't enough designated parking spaces, although DMP says it has designated 50 or so such spots in the city. When we contend with the fact that most of the parking spaces in commercial buildings, including offices and shopping malls, are either insufficient or non-existent, one can begin to comprehend the gravity of the situation.

But help, we are told, is on the way. The DMP is thinking of introducing a digital parking service that can be made available on smartphones. While the DMP is thinking about it, such applications are already available to android users, but the thought is a step in the right direction. There is also the matter of raising awareness and publicising the availability of such services. However, there is no denying the fact that the two city corporations need to do a lot more to build new multi-storeyed parking spaces in the city. We had previously heard a lot of talk from authorities that parking spaces in buildings would be freed up but that drive seems to have petered out. Dhaka needs concrete solutions and not promises if this menace is to be tackled because the number of vehicles will keep rising every year.