Very long queues of buses, trucks and other vehicles standing motionless or moving forward only at snail’s pace in different sections of the national highways were noticed in the last couple of days. In some cases the tailbacks were unbearably longer. At least one such tailback was as long as 60 km as reported in this paper on Saturday. Hundreds of thousands of people were caught in these very uncomfortable conditions in the scorching summer heat in buses packed like sardines. In most cases, people were returning to Dhaka from their ancestral homes after spending the Eid holidays there. Usually, people do attempt to return to the capital at their convenience with extended periods of leave taken from their workplaces beforehand so that they can plan their return journeys flexibly. But this mode was interrupted this time by the 48 hours continuous hartal call enforced right after the Eid holidays. People were in some desperation in many cases to return to Dhaka right after the end of the long hartal. Thus, as they all rushed on the same day and also at short intervals, this caused the tangles on the highways. Also contributory were some accidents that blocked roads and the time spent on removing dysfunctional vehicles from the accident spots to allow for resumption of vehicular movement.
While the factors like hartal, people’s eagerness to return and road blocking effects from accidents are all blamed for the exceptional jammed conditions of the highways, the question that also arises is: whether the pains could be lessened to some extent by instant vigilance by those who were entrusted with the tasks of maintaining free flow on the highways. Only some years ago, there were no highway police available. But squads of this special police force presently remain deployed throughout the lengths of the country’s major highways. Why they could not deliver in the post-Eid circumstances? Are we to conclude that they did not have a plan going in anticipation of these conditions or whether they were simply lacking in the expected enthusiasm to relieve people from the horrendous jams? Someone somewhere must be held responsible and made to account for the omissions or commissions that led to such situations.
Let us at least ensure that such awful sufferings of travelling people would not be allowed to happen again during the coming Eid-ul-Azha through proactive planning and preparations. No less imperative is thorough repairing of all presently damaged or unfit parts of the highways to that end.