Govt push for separate Dhaka lanes for VIPs trolled on Facebook

The government plan to carve out separate lanes in Dhaka for the VIPs along with the emergency services like ambulance and fire crew has sparked outrage on the social media.

Many netizens wrote angry and sarcastic posts on the internet after the Cabinet Division on Monday sent the proposal to the Road Transport and Highways Division highlighting the 'VIP lanes' in the capital.

Zayadul Ahsan Pintu, editor of private TV station DBC News, wrote on Facebook, “Separate lanes for VIPs proposed: The person who made this whimsical proposal should be given the Nobel prize!!”

   

One Faizul Islam Jahan wrote, “First, let us know how many VIPs are there in the country, what will be the cost to set up separate lanes and the cost per head. The public will keep licking their thumbs. Ridiculous!”       

Maruf Rahman even suggested setting up a separate city for the VIPs.

“There will be more traffic congestion on the VIP lanes while the lanes for commoners will be empty in the country which hears people boasting - ‘Do you know me?’ In most cases of altercations. So it can be said these VIP lanes will be very much effective for the ultra-poor,” one Syed Faiz Ahmed joked.  

The VIPs ‘never realise the pains of common people’, Faisal Siddique Shuvo Borno said.

“Will the VIPs ever realise the pain of the people who need to become Superman during a bus ride to go to work?” he threw the question in a Facebook post.

 

One Rubel Abul Hasan made an ironic recommendation – allowing the VIPs to take all the lanes, the wrong ones, and even the separate ones.

Transparency International, Bangladesh or TIB has called the proposal ‘discriminatory that goes against the Constitution’.

The rights organisation said in a statement on Tuesday, “This discriminatory proposal is a clear violation of the Constitution and tantamounts to extreme abuse of power."

"This proposal is a violation of the basic principles of the Constitution to ensure equal opportunities, protection of the law, and equality beyond religion and ethnicity of all the citizens.”

The Communist Party of Bangladesh or CPB has also delivered a damning indictment of the proposal, saying it ‘reflected the fact that the government is not connected with the people’.

The proposal claimed that developed countries created separate lanes for ambulance and fire services, law-enforcement agencies and VIPs but provided no example.

In fact, in developed countries, there are separate lanes for public transports like public bus. Sometimes, a private car is allowed to take those lanes if there are two or more passengers in the car.

VIPs in Dhaka often drive on the wrong lanes, which creates traffic chaos. Patients die in ambulances stuck in the gridlock.

Firemen and police also need separate lanes for quick responses to emergencies, Cabinet Secretary Mohammad Shafiul Alam said, explaining the rationale for the move.

After seeing the citizens’ reactions to the proposal, the Prime Minister’s Deputy Press Secretary Ashraful Alam Khokan wrote on Facebook that ‘many are being misled without knowing the matter full well’.

Traffic congestions  

Urban planners and transport experts have issues with the proposal. They say separate lanes for the VIPs will narrow the streets and make the nightmare traffic even worse.

Architect Habib Iqbal told bdnews24.com the VIP lanes would facilitate more private cars on the streets, creating more traffic congestions.

“Such a move is out of the question in a democratic country,” he said.   

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The streets make up less than 10 percent of the capital’s area, and building separate lanes on these limited number of streets will only heap on the traffic woes, thinks Dr SM Saleh Uddin, a former executive director of Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority or DTCA.

“We will have to leave more space for this and it will be difficult to maintain. Those unauthorised to use the lanes will want to use them. The traffic situation will never improve through this move,” he told bdnews24.com.

‘Roads are not fit’

DTCA Executive Director Syed Ahmed said the streets in Dhaka are not suitable for such separate lanes.

“There need to be a survey on the proposal,” he said.

“But I don’t see much space for separate lanes, considering the traffic condition, the number of vehicles, and the width of the streets,” he added.

He also referred to the studies on Dhaka’s transport system to back his claim.

Road Transport and Highways Secretary Md Nazrul Islam said they have forwarded the proposal to DTCA to check its feasibility.