The government on Wednesday decided to make mandatory for cars, micro-buses, jeeps, trucks and covered vans to install of GPS (global positioning system) camera against the backdrop of increased incidents of carjacking.
An inter-ministry meeting, presided over by the home minister, Sahara Khatun, at the secretariat, made the decision to stop carjacking with the use of modern technology.
The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority has been asked to issue a gazette notification to the effect soon.
'We have decided to make mandatory the installation of GPS cameras in cars, micro-buses, jeeps, trucks and covered vans so that the owners can track the vehicles from their home,' Sahara Khatun told reporters after the meeting.
She said that the use of GPS , beside the routine operations of he police, would help to contain crimes on highways.
There are 20,07503 cars, 90,635 jeeps, station wagons and micro-buses, 12,298 taxicabs and 81,561 trucks in the country, according to BRTA records.
The shipping minister, Shajahan Khan, communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, state minister for home Shamsul Haque, senior officials from law enforcement agencies and representatives of transport owners and workers' associations, among others, attended the meeting to check road accidents and keep law and order on highways.
The meeting was told that the number loaded trucks and covered vans being lifted from highways on Dhaka–Bogra, Dhaka–Narayanganj, Dhaka–Sylhet and Dhaka–Chittagong routes had increased recently.
Sahara assured the transport owners and workers that special measures would be taken to check mugging and lifting of trucks and vans on the highway.
'A syndicate was active behind the lifting of the trucks and covered vans carrying garment items,' she added.
The shipping minister, however, said that the owners had been requested not to operate trucks but those carrying essential commodities in three days before Eid, which is likely to take place either on August 31 or September 1, to ensure smooth movement of passenger vehicles.
The labour leader-turned-minister Shajahan said that the police alone could not check carjacking and stop the looting of goods on highways.
'We have to use modern technology to stop carjacking and mugging on highways as we cannot depend only on the police to contain such crimes,' he said adding that GPS cameras were devices through which vehicles can be tracked sitting at home and the device costs about Tk 12,000.
Each subscriber will need to pay Tk 300 a month to service providers for line rent, officials said adding that mobile phone operators were already offering such services.
Sahara said that most highways such as Dhaka–Tangail, Dhaka–Mymensingh and Dhaka–Narayanganj had been rickety, which was causing huge sufferings to the public.
The communications minister, she said, had assured the meeting that the damaged roads would be repaired to reduce suffering of the people.
The shipping minister complained at the meeting that transport workers were usually harassed by the Highway Police, which sometimes caused fatal accidents.
The meeting directed the truck owners to keep biographical data with photographs of all truck drivers and their assistants with them for security reasons.
Law enforcers were once again directed not to allow any weekly markets on highways.
Source : New Age
No comments:
Post a Comment