The perennial traffic snarl-ups are mainly due to mismanagement by traffic sergeants and policemen, gross violation traffic rules by unruly bus and truck drivers, and activities of local hoodlums, who in connivance with police engage scores of vendors to sell different items to stranded bus passengers and others. Even when traffic flow is normal, at times the hoodlums deliberately block the road on the pretext of business activities.

Moreover, delay in widening of the highway by the Roads and Highways Department is adding to the traffic chaos.

Plying of a large number of vehicles also generates huge dust in the densely populated area causing environmental degradation and exposing passengers and local people to various health hazards.

According to traffic department officials, every day more than 12,000 vehicles enter the capital through Jatrabari point. These vehicles, including over 3,000 trucks, from Narayanganj, Chittagong and Sylhet regions and other places create a chaotic situation regularly.

Ansar Uddin Khan Pathan, deputy commissioner (south) of metropolitan traffic department, however gave a different explanation for the chaos. He said the road leading to Jatrabari is too narrow to accommodate the large number of heavy and light vehicles. The situation worsens when trucks start entering the city at 8:00pm. Although two traffic sergeants and six constables man the Jatrabari point round the clock, traffic congestion becomes inevitable, he said.

The only solution to this traffic chaos is building the proposed Dhaka eastern by-pass and five-kilometre-long flyover from Jatrabari to Gulistan, for which the process is on. The by-pass would divert a considerable number of heavy vehicles which now pass through the capital on way to northern and western districts, he pointed out.

During peak hours from 5:00pm to 10:00pm, thousands of vehicles trying to enter the capital are often caught in the traffic snarl-ups creating miles-long queues. Hundreds of trucks are also allowed to enter the city after 8:00pm that aggravates the traffic jam, stranding thousands in buses and other vehicles for hours.

Bus driver Ahmed Jushas Badsha, whose vehicle shuttles between Dhaka and Chittagong at least five times a week, said they reach Kanchpur bridge from Chittagong in about four hours but sometimes it takes up to four hours more to cross two kilometres of the road to Jatrabari point.

He blamed police for this situation saying most drivers do not follow traffic laws 'because police are more interested in taking bribes from them than addressing their problems'.

A regular passenger using the Dhaka-Chittagong route, Shamsur Rahman Patal, said that to avoid the long wait to enter the city sometimes he gets down a bus and takes rickshaw to pass through small roads and lanes to Jatrabari. Many others also do so.

"It is a nightmare for those who travel on this road frequently," he said.