Divide the nation out of Dhaka

One more in my series on traffic management solutions for my hometown Dhaka. The suggestions are ideas that in my opinion could help ease the traffic mess in Dhaka. As always the idea can just as easily be replicated in all the other cities and towns across Bangladesh to benefit road users... provided intent.

Traffic Management: Lesson 7: Dhaka is only a mega-city by sheer volume of its population and by no means because of its infrastructure and facilities. It is a failed city and soon to be a dead one if we do not get our wits in order and organise and rearrange.

The traffic situation is moot point and testimony that the infrastructure in the city is no where near what it needs to be to simply cope.


That the city empties out every major holiday is proof enough most of the present Dhaka denizens still have major ties to their origins... particularly strong family ties. Which means that there is somewhere else they'd all rather be. The reason for their presence in Dhaka can be attributed to four basic reasons: 1) job opportunities, 2) education, 3) required links to government offices/ministries, 4) medical reasons, 5) better opportunities in a city.

Truthfully it says very little of our country and is a sad indication of our development and planning when we can boast Dhaka as the best we have.

What Bangladesh needs is a federal system of governance. Most of the systemic architecture is there, we have District Commissioners and local government leadership structures as well as local mayors in place in the other cities – what we do not have is clout and wherewithal to get things done without permission from central government.

The divisions should be allowed semi-autonomy and the governors allowed to implement their own local requirements for power, infrastructure, education. They should be allowed to invite businesses to invest in the area through special zones or preferred tax rates, etc. That way if new industries enter otherwise isolated/neglected zones it will translate to better paying jobs and in turn inject growth in housing, roads, schools, etc and bring economic dignity to areas that were previously compelled to wait government handouts and partisan representation in parliament.

Sales taxes would be proportioned out to federal tax and national tax, such that some of the revenue would stay in the district for development of infrastructure and other facilities. Divisions would compete against each other for development and investment – and because the better developed divisions and those with more efficient local governments would invite people to move in, it would be mean two things – lesser pressure on Dhaka as people who don't have to be there move out (unclogging the roads), and also divisions the get the influx grow richer from the taxes these new denizens pay.

So Lesson 7 – divide and divest takes some of the investment (and traffic) designated for Dhaka and put it in areas that hitherto was not getting its requisite development funding. People can then live closer to home because suddenly that home can meet their needs for job opportunities, schooling, infrastructure, medicine, etc - eventually benefiting the nation.

The plus is that the streets of Dhaka are suddenly freer and the urgency for infrastructure in Dhaka, while still there, can be tackled more systematically and with more breathing time.