Terminal turmoil on Savar road

Savar's Namabazar Road is a busy place. Every day, people from at least 20 areas of Dhamrai upazila and Savar municipality use the road, which connects to different points of Dhaka-Aricha highway and Savar-Singair regional highway.

The number of commuters on the road would round up well over lakhs, and all of them have to face extreme difficulty throughout the day due to the indiscriminate loading and unloading of goods from thousands of vehicles.

The area is a wholesale hub thanks to a nearby market that houses numerous businesses -- including pulse, corn, oil and saw mills, and wholesale grocery stores. As the area lacks a truck terminal, trucks, container trucks, and pickups basically use the road as a terminal.

Mohon Mia, a medical representative by profession, said he has been commuting on the road every day for the last two years. "I have to spent around two hours a day on the road waiting for the traffic to clear," he told this correspondent recently.

"No one cares about keeping the road free. That the area has no traffic police only adds to our woes," he said.

This is all the more frustrating given that the load-unload spot is right next to Savar Model Police Station, he said.

General secretary of Savar Bazar Byabshayi Kallyan Samity Anwar Mondol, also a trader in Namabazar area, said, "The stagnancy of the road affects our businesses as well, but we are forced to load and unload this way as there's no terminal nearby."

"We have requested the authorities concerned, including the mayor and the local MP, in this regard, but we are yet to get a terminal," he added.

Contacted, Savar municipality mayor Hazi Abdul Goni said they have not been able to build a terminal due to unavailability of a suitable piece of land.

"If they [the market authority] gave us a land today, we would start building the terminal right away," the mayor said.

He said they've asked the market authorities to carry out loading and unloading activities at night, but it only fell upon deaf ears.

The mayor also said they've requested the regional police to deploy traffic personnel at the area, but this is yet to take place.

However, traffic inspector (admin) of Dhaka District North Traffic Police Station Abdus Salam said they did not get any application from the municipality.

Besides, he said, they are faced with a shortage of personnel, which would make the deployment difficult anyway.

Despite repeated attempts, this correspondent could not reach local MP Dr Enamur Rahman, also state minister for Disaster Management and Relief, for comments.