Thick black smoke emitted by nearly 1.5 lakh old and junk vehicles causing a serious environmental threat for the Dhaka city dwellers.

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) admitted that nearly 50 percent of the vehicles in the capital do not have fitness certificates, a senior official of BRTA told BSS.

The sources said, in collaboration with a section of dishonest officials of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) for a long time the owners get certificates from the road transport authority allowing the unfit vehicles to ply.

With the growth of population in a city motorized traffic on roads are also on the rise. It is estimated that about 100 used or new motorized vehicles are entering on roads of Dhaka city every day where road space covers only about 6 percent of city area. At present, more than 3, 20,000 motor vehicles ply in Dhaka city alone. Moreover, overloaded, poorly maintained and very old trucks and mini-buses are also plying the city streets emitting smokes and gases.

Read more: http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2009/07/29/news0222.htm

Source: The New Nation (http://nation.ittefaq.com)