Lack of preparation is behind the delay in the proper implementation of the Road Transport Act-2018 which was made effective from Friday (Nov 1).
People familiar with the matter said that those responsible for imposing the law in the field level needed to be trained a long time before implementing it.
“There are many nitty-gritty details when it comes to how a new law should be implemented,” said former inspector general of police (IGP) Mohammad Nurul Huda.
“Since the police will be implementing the law at the field level, they needed to be prepared a long time ago,” he said before adding the previous law will have to continue until the manpower is trained.
Meanwhile, it will be a few days till Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) starts slapping people with fines and lodging cases under the new act.
Sources said that the DMP’s traffic division in public interest has set the fines lower than what the law provisions.
The law provisions for a fine of Tk 25,000 and six months jail for operating vehicles without driver’s licence but the DMP has set the fine at Tk 5,000 for a first-time offence and Tk 10,000 for the second time.
The same way vehicles without registration are supposed to be fined Tk 50,000 but the initial amount has been set at Tk 10,000 for the first time and Tk 20,000 for the second. For motorcycles, the fine was Tk 10,000 and three-months in prison. It has been reduced to Tk 1,000 for the first time and Tk 2,000 for the second time offence.
“Some work related to filing cases and slapping fines is still pending,” Traffic Division Addition Commissioner Mofiz Uddin Ahmed told Bangla Tribune.
He added that it will be a few days till the DMP officially makes the fines and cases effective.
The DMP conducted a workshop on the new law with the sergeants of the four Dhaka metro zones. Moreover, they will be required to fine the drivers manually until the software is updated.
“We have to wait a while in order to fine through digital device until the software is updated,” AC Ahmed said.
He added that the traffic can’t start fining manually immediately either given that the receipts are still in the printing press.
A sergeant at Kawranbazar’s SARC fountain intersection said that their digital devices will be taken for the software update and workshops are being carried out in two shifts for the traffic police.
A spot visit to the streets on Saturday (Nov 2) showed that people including the traffic police don’t have a clear idea about it.
Drivers said that they only know bits and pieces about the fines but are not aware of all the provisions of the law.
The bikers of ride-sharing services near Bashundhara Shopping Mall said that those without proper papers weren’t bringing out their vehicles.
DMP North Zone Deputy Commissioner Prabir Kumar Rai said that they have already started to spread awareness about the law and officials programmes will be conducted later.
The Parliament cleared the road transport law on Sept 19, 2018 after countrywide student protests following the deaths of two school students on the airport road who were run over by a bus.
However, demand for a new transport law has been there for a long time but no government until now was able to implement it due to pressure from influential transport owners.