Shawdesh Desk:

Road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader on Tuesday said that they would monitor five national highways closely to stop movement of three-wheelers, including battery-run auto-rickshaws.

The minister made the comment while briefing the journalists after the 29th meeting of the National Road Safety Council at the BRTA headquarters in Dhaka.

Replying to a question whether the government would monitor the other highways, he said that they would also monitor the other highways but they had manpower crisis.

‘You have to understand that we can’t closely monitor all the highways at a time as we don’t have enough manpower,’ the minister explained.

The meeting was also attended by the railways minister Nurul Islam Sujan, Dhaka South City Corporation mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh, inspector general of police Chowdhury Abdullah Al Mamun, Road Transport and Highways Division secretary ABM Amin Ullah Nuri, railways ministry secretary Humayun Kabir, former shipping minister and Bangladesh Road Transport Worker’s Federation executive president Shajahan Khan, BRTA chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder and representatives of different transport organisations.

In August 2015, the road transport and bridges ministry imposed a ban on the movement of three-wheelers and non-motorised vehicles on 22 national highways, and in the same month, the High Court asked the government to keep unfit motor vehicles off the roads across Bangladesh to reduce traffic accidents.

The five national highways where the movement of three-wheelers would be monitored closely are Dhaka-Aricha, Dhaka-Mymensingh, Dhaka-Sylhet, Dhaka-Chattogram and Dhaka-Tangail. Highways.

The meeting, however, did not approve the proposal for banning motorcycles on highways.

It approved the National Road Safety Strategic plan.

A guideline to control movement of three-wheelers and motorcycles on highways is also in the offing, said Obaidul Quader.

Railways minister Nurul Islam Sujan said that trains did not hit anything as it ran on its own tracks and added, ‘rather other vehicles hit it coming on its tracks’,

He urged the road transport and local government ministries to take actions for reducing accidents involving road transports on rail tracks.