Eid journey home
Ttravelling home on Eid holidays has been an excruciating experience in Bangladesh. The positive effects of expansion of the main highways have been overtaken by the addition to the volume of public and private vehicles on the road. And pressure on the roads has multiplied with the concomitant deterioration of the railways, whereas it had once been the major means of travelling across the country after travel by waterways. And of course, there are the effects of nature whereby ferry service remains disrupted, in some cases, or interrupted, in some others.
This time too, the experience of the home-goers has been no different, and perhaps even worse than on previous occasions as evident from the media reports. What we fail to understand, however, is that such holidays are not unanticipated events. Yet the authorities have not quite come up to the demands of the time. Repair works are started at the last moment, and are patchy in most cases, and expansion works on the highways are undertaken without providing for alternative side roads, which is what should normally be done.
Given that this government has been in office for the last 10 years, one would have hoped that the pressure-time problems of, and on, the roads would have been addressed and cured for good. Reportedly, the authorities have initiated certain measures, like banning slow moving and unfit vehicles from the highways, quick removal of broken down vehicles from the road, and not allowing cattle markets alongside the main highways, which are indeed very appropriate. But one is not sure whether these would be implemented on ground. One would hope that the authorities would be more proactive in future and spare the travelling public the pain.
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