Haphazard and illegal parking of vehicles in the city is at its height, contributing much to the gridlock, blocking almost half the city roads in front of shopping centres, educational institutes and here and there across the capital.
The Rajdhani Unnayan Kartipakkha, Dhaka City Corporation and traffic police seem to fight shy of taking stringent actions against the unlawful car parks causing nuisance to motorists and pedestrians.
The urban planners and city dwellers alleged that illegal parking on the city streets, especially in front of shopping malls across the capital, was on the rise violating parking law.
It blocked almost half the city streets, virtually leaving hardly enough room for the vehicles to pass along, said the city dwellers. Asiatic Society of Bangladesh President Prof Nazrul Islam, also chairman of Centre for Urban Studies, said there was no discipline in car parks in Dhaka city.
“The Rajuk in this regard is yet to implement its plan while lack of monitoring, weakness of traffic management and lack of adequate parking facilities are responsible for the rise of illegal parking,” Prof Nazrul observed.
The capital development authority only approved infrastructure, its plan and design, but hardly probed whether the implementing authorities did their work in accordance with its approval and plan, he added.
Most drivers and vehicles’ owners seemed to be oblivious of the parking rules and regulations, and they just parked their vehicles on roads according to their own sweet will, said he.
Nazrul Islam allegedly said most shopping malls lack enough parking lot, and shoppers very often left their cars parked either in front of them, or on both sides of the road, being least concerned about a free and smooth movement of other vehicles. Such random parking is very common in the city, with car drivers doing this practice under the very nose of traffic police.
But Mir Rezaul Alam, joint commissioner (traffic) of Dhaka Metropolitan Police, claimed that mobile teams of traffic police were continuously on the lookout for traffic law breakers in order to take punitive actions against them.
“Sometimes, it is difficult to spot the law breakers in the nick of time while they are making illegal parking,” he added.
Rajuk Member (planning) Sheikh Abdul Mannan claimed that they had been taking actions against the city building owners, who did not abide by Rajuk plan to keep a provision of car parks in their buildings.
“We also have operated mobile court at different times and imposed fines on the building owners,” he added.
Meanwhile, the Dhaka South City Corporation (DSCC) and Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC) have allowed for car parks in only six locations across the city.
DSCC Chief Town Planner Mohammad Sirajul Islam said they set aside one area in the city for car parks and one indoor multi-storey parking lot named “City Centre” at Motijheel with a capacity to accommodate 1,500 cars.
According to the parking law, vehicles are permitted to park on roadside where the city corporations put up a parking sign. Parking elsewhere other than those selected areas are illegal.
Chief Estate Officer of DNCC, Md Fasiullah, said the city corporation chose two sites near Mohammadpur Town Hall Market and Kitchen Market for car parks.
Two other parking lots were near Gulshan Kitchen Market and Banani Kitchen Market, he said, adding that they had a plan to choose some other such sites in Badda.