Efforts to improve road safety in the country are stalling, with a high number of accidents continuing despite the creation of 111 recommendations and dedicated committees over five years ago.

In 2019, a high-powered committee headed by former minister Shajahan Khan made 111 recommendations. Out of these, 50 were to be implemented in 2019, 32 by 2021, and the remaining 29 by 2024.

Sources from the Road Transport and Highways Department told the Daily Sun that a task force of 33 members was formed under the Ministry of Home Affairs to implement these recommendations. The task force held its first meeting on 24 November 2019, where four committees were established to execute the recommendations.

These committees are road transport and highways department related recommendation implementation committee, enforcement related recommendation implementation committee, road safety publicity and public awareness recommendation implementation committee, and local government department related recommendations implementation committee. Each committee was tasked with preparing time-bound action plans for their respective recommendations.

Of the 111 recommendations, 55 pertain to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), either individually or jointly. Of these recommendations, 24 are urgent, 18 short-term and 13 are long-term in nature, and their implementation is ongoing, according to BRTA sources.

ABM Amin Ullah Nuri, secretary of the Road Transport and Highways Division, told the Daily Sun that the committees formed to implement the recommendations are working and providing progress reports every month. These are reviewed at each task force meeting.

“Some of the 111 recommendations have been implemented, while some have not. But, the process of implementing these recommendations is ongoing,” he said.

Progress in past one year

Sources told the Daily Sun that BRTA has undertaken several initiatives, including the implementation of the 111 recommendations, in the past year to restore discipline on roads.

In order to strengthen discipline in the road transport sector and control accidents, initiatives have been taken to enforce strict laws with the cooperation of the police department, highway police, road transport owner workers and all concerned to stop illegal, expired and unlicensed motor vehicles and drivers without driving license on the road.

National Road Safety Strategic Action Plan 2021-2024 has been prepared with the aim of reducing road accidents by half by 2030. All concerned ministries/departments/organizations are implementing their respective Action Plans.

To prevent road accidents, warning notices are published in daily newspapers at regular intervals to maintain order on roads. Various awareness posters, leaflets, stickers are distributed. Besides, road safety information/ slogans are being broadcast in TV schools and various important non-government TV channels, BRTA sources said.

However, the reality on the roads reflects little impact from these ‘initiatives’. Vehicles with expired route permits and unlicensed drivers are still on the roads, our investigations have revealed. Even though action plans have been taken to control accidents, road accidents have not reduced and are constantly increasing, indicating that the awareness campaigns have not yet yielded significant results.

What an expert says:

Md Hadiuzzaman, a transport expert and professor at the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology told The Daily Sun, “The 111 recommendations were made to reduce road traffic and accidents. An independent and impartial task force needed to be constituted to implement them. Who will work 365 days to implement this recommendation.”

The current committees, although powerful at the policy-making level, have numerous responsibilities, making it difficult to focus solely on implementing the recommendations. Consequently, the visible impact of these recommendations remains limited, he concluded.