The special assistant to the chief adviser, Sheik Moinuddin, at a dialogue on Saturday said that all transport related authorities should come under one umbrella.
He also said that transport was the economic backbone of a country which should be improved for different benefits.
He said that he had taken an initiative to establish a separate unit for dealing with the road safety issues with a holistic approach under the road transport and bridges ministry.
Though there is no funding yet, they have made the start, he said.
The special assistant said these at the national dialogue titled necessary budget allocation for road safety activities and sustainable initiative for establishing order in the road transport sector.
The event was organised by the Road Safety Foundation at the BRTA headquarters in the capital Dhaka.
Sheik Moinuddin said that there was no lack of expertise among the people working on the road safety issue.
鈥楤ut all these dots are working differently,鈥� he said, adding, 鈥榃e need a connection here.鈥�
He also said that the authorities concerned needed to fix its main focus that road safety was important.
Md Shafiqul Islam, deputy inspector general of the highway police, said that daily 18 people killed on roads in the country as per their statistics.
鈥楾ill this year nine members of my forces have been killed in road crashes,鈥� he said, adding, 鈥業 think that road crashes is structural killing.鈥�
Dhaka University鈥檚 development studies department professor Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir said that the road safety related plans did not work in Bangladesh due to lack of science鈥揵ased policies or strategies.
While presenting the keynote paper, the RSF vice-president Syed Jahangir alleged that Bangladesh lacked the structured financial and legal support for road safety while no budget and economic code for road safety deepened the problem.
Bangladesh needs a strategic, legal and technology-driven road safety agenda, he said, adding that through reforms and coordinated investment global standards can be achieved in road safety initiatives.聽
The paper read that the number of traffic police in the country is now 12,000 which should be 35,000 and the coverage of speed camera on the main roads is only 15 per cent.
RSF demanded allocation of an economic budget code and 15 per cent of the transport budget for road safety, establishment of a Tk 500 crore emergency safety fund for the fiscal year, integrate BRTA, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation and Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority into a single entity under
the National Road Safety Authority, launching of National Road Safety Dashboard and a five-year road map for improving road safety.
The dialogue was also attended by BRTA chairman Md Yeasin, RSF chairman professor AI Mahbub Uddin, executive director Saidur Rahman, DU Institute of Health Economics professor Syed Abdul Hamid and officials from BRTC, DTCA and Roads and Highways Department and leaders of transport owner and worker associations.
