Moghbazar-Mouchak flyover construction: An everyday deadlock

TRAVELLING through Moghbazar and Mouchak area is a nightmare now, as building of an 8.25 km flyover, which started two years ago, is being undertaken without any effective traffic management system to tackle the situation. No alternative routes were marked out, nor was the number of traffic police increased. The whole construction is, in fact, awfully mismanaged, adding to people's already troubled life in Dhaka city.

I take this route everyday to go to my university as I live in Banglamotor, and I have to be stuck in traffic for at least 1.5 hours. Construction of a flyover is supposed to be a normal affair, but the way the work is being done here is putting us in utter misery. We wonder if the authorities take any notice of the devastating effect on public life caused by the construction work. Lack of coordination among the workers is one of the major concerns in the way of execution, along with the roads being congested with construction equipment and materials like rods, cements, and bricks. Thus, whatever space is required for vehicles to move has been narrowed.

Even walking on the footpath is a struggle now. The whole route, from Moghbazar-Mouchak-Shantinagar, is thick with polluted air. There is so much dust in the air that the passers-by can hardly see, or inhale properly. Children are the prime victims of this daily situation, as this route links some of the biggest and renowned schools and colleges of the city. There are also small accidents taking place every now and then, wheels of buses often get stuck in the holes dug up for the construction work, causing the traffic jam to become worse.

We have come to know recently that the contractors have stopped working with a view to increasing the amount of contract by at least 100%, blaming change in design. It is a normal in Bangladesh that the contractors are always gainers if work is delayed for any reason. Some unscrupulous engineers and officials of the government are closely associated with the constructors for mutual benefit.

We hope that the authority concerned will come up with something effective to resolve this issue.

The writers are students in the Department of Business Administration, East West University.