Include pledge for safe road in election manifesto

City Desk :
The Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity (BJKS), a group working for passenger welfare, has called upon political parties to include a pledge in their election manifesto to ensure safe roads and a smart public transportation system in the country.

The association made the demand at a press conference in the capital on Thursday.

Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury, the association’s general secretary, said the ruling Awami League pledged to ensure road safety in its 2018 election manifesto, but not many efforts were visible during its tenure, reports media.

He said there is no smart public transportation system to ease public movement in the capital and elsewhere in the country. As a result, people are being forced to ride unclean and unsafe public transport.

He said the people are losing their precious working hours to traffic jams. Moreover, the passengers are being harassed in various ways, including through charging extra fares.

City dwellers are suffering from severe air and dust pollution.

Given the long-standing demands of passengers and civil society, bus services have been introduced on some routes under the initiative of the Dhaka South City Corporation under the bus route rationalization project called “Dhaka Nagar Paribahan”.