Tk50,000 crore lost every year to traffic jam in capital

The country is incurring at least Tk50,000 crore losses every year due to the acute road traffic gridlocks seen every day in the capital, and the authorities’ consistent failure in addressing the crisis.

The failure can be largely attributed to the lack of coordination among different government agencies tasked with curbing traffic jams on Dhaka city roads.

In 2012, the then government formed the Dhaka Transport Cooperation Authority (DTCA) with aim to coordinate among different agencies. However, as it was short of enforcement powers, real progress was never achieved.

DTCA provides services to the two city corporations, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC), Dhaka Mass Transit Company Ltd (DMTCL), Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and traffic police – but cannot ensure effective coordination among them. More alarmingly, DTCA cannot maintain any channel of coordination with traffic police. DTCA officials have put the blame on traffic police.

Government buses are operated by BRTC, while private buses are controlled by various owners’ and workers’ associations.

Dhrub Alam, director of bus route rationalisation project at DTCA, said, “Although we are responsible for coordinating Dhaka’s transport system, due to lack of adequate cooperation from other agencies, we are unable to implement projects and programs effectively.”

The lack of coordination among agencies is most evident in the determination of bus routes. Currently, around 9,000 buses operate on more than 291 routes in Dhaka. To address this disorder, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) is attempting to implement the “Bus Route Rationalization” project, which aims to bring over a hundred private bus companies under a limited number of companies and operate them on designated routes.

Under this plan, DTCA has reduced and fixed the number of routes to 42. However, at the same time, the traffic police have developed their own separate bus route plan, which conflicts with DTCA’s plan. Moreover, although the law requires coordination with DTCA in determining routes, there have been instances where other committees and agencies have also approved routes independently. As a result, multiple plans exist for the same routes, creating complications in implementation.

Masihur Rahman, Chief Executive Director of the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA), told Kaler Kantho, “It is supposed to be our responsibility to take initiatives on bus route plans, but the police are doing it. We have raised this issue in ministry meetings, saying that if they want to make plans, they can do so, but they should at least take our advice. It would be better if they allowed us to design the plans and then carried them out in implementation.”

Traffic congestion in Dhaka causes an annual loss of at least Tk50,000 crore. Based on this, in a decade Dhaka’s traffic jams have caused losses exceeding Tk5 lakh crore to the state. On 14 March, Inspector General of Police Ali Hossain Fakir said at a meeting in Gazipur, “Due to traffic congestion alone, the capital loses Tk140 crore taka daily; this amounts to Tk50,000 crore annually.”

On 26 June last year, at a seminar of the Policy Research Institute (PRI), former Chief Adviser’s Special Assistant Sheikh Moinuddin said, “Traffic congestion in the capital causes annual losses of Tk37,000 crore, enough to build two MRT lines per year. At the same time, five million working hours are lost annually.”

This crisis requires a coordinated transport management system.

According to data from the Accident Research Institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) from about four years ago, traffic congestion in Dhaka causes economic losses of Tk37,000-Tk55,000 crore annually ($3.5 billion to $5 billion), equivalent to losing 5% to 10% of GDP.

Beyond financial loss, traffic congestion poses serious health risks, according to a World Bank report. The global institution estimates that in 2019, environmental pollution—especially vehicle-related air pollution—was responsible for 78,000 to 88,000 premature deaths in Bangladesh, equivalent to about 4% of GDP loss.