Bangladesh army controls traffic

By Mark Dummett
BBC News, Dhaka

Dhaka is one of the most congested cities in the world

Bangladesh's army has been ordered onto the streets of the capital Dhaka to help deal with the city's chronic traffic congestion.

The traffic has got worse in recent days as people prepare for the Muslim Eid holidays.

Dhaka is one of the fastest-growing, and slowest-moving cities in the world.

Its population has doubled in the past decade to reach about 15 million, but hardly any new roads have been built in all that time.

As a result the Bangladeshi capital has become immensely congested.

Military policemen took up positions on Tuesday morning at some of the major junctions to try to get things moving.

Crawling traffic

According to one of the army officers on duty at the Kawran Bazaar junction, one of the largest in Dhaka, several hundred men have so far been deployed.

"We are helping the police improve the traffic situation which always gets worse in the run-up to Eid. We are also telling pedestrians not to run across the roads but to use bridges and underpasses as they are supposed to," he said.

On Monday, the Local Government Minister Syed Ashraful Islam told parliament that bad planning had caused the traffic problems, the Daily Star newspaper reported.

"We all are suffering from congestion on roads, and at times even the Prime Minister's motorcade slows to a crawl," he said.

"Unlike other cities where 25% of the land is reserved for road construction, it is only seven to eight percent in Dhaka."

It is too early to say if this latest plan will work, but other initiatives have failed.

Few drivers here respect the traffic police, and everyone ignores the traffic lights.