Cars pollute as soon as they are turned on, whether they are moving or sitting still in traffic. To blame air pollution on rickshaws because they slow down cars is outrageous. Even when moving smoothly and well-maintained, cars pollute; internationally, cars are the major polluters of our air and the major contributors to climate change. Worldwide, the most air pollution is created by the United States, not because their cars are slowed by rickshaws, or because their cars are poorly maintained, but because Americans drive so much. Cars pollute; lots of cars pollute a lot.

CNG is cleaner than other fuels, but as it is a carbon-based fuel, it still releases carbon dioxide into the air as well as the cancer-causing chemical benzene, for which no safe level of exposure is known. People travelling by foot, bicycle, or rickshaw arrive at their destination without contributing to air pollution; people travelling by a motorized vehicle, even a bus, contribute to air pollution. While the rich are the main sources of air pollution, everyone breathes the air. Meanwhile, if the rich believe they are somehow immune to air pollution because they live with air conditioning, they might wish to remember that they too must breathe the same air that they are polluting; the more cars, the more they too will suffer.

The government does not have any central mechanism to check misuse of its transport, especially the vehicles under various projects, allowing many officials and employees to avail themselves of transport facilities round the clock which they are not entitled to.

An officer of the rank of joint secretary and above belongs to the ‘privileged group in the civil service and is entitled to 24-hour car facilities’ but those below the rank of joint secretary are not entitled to such facilities, said an official at the establishment ministry.

‘Those who are entitled to 24-hour car facilities are enjoying it. So there is no question of misuse of the transport under the government pool….But there is no central mechanism to oversee the use of vehicles procured under different projects,’ transport commissioner of the directorate of government transport Md Ibadat Ali told New Age on Thursday.

He said the authorities concerned were supposed to hand over the vehicles to the transport pool on completion of the projects under various ministries.
‘It is the responsibility of the authorities concerned to look after the project vehicles until they are given to the transport pool on completion of the projects,’ Ibadat, who holds the rank of an additional secretary, said in reply to a question.

Nowadays most departments and directorates do not hand over the project cars – mostly sport utility vehicles – to the government transport pool on the pretext that the project duration could be extended or that new projects were being taken, said officials.

They alleged that the departments and directorates offered the SUVs procured
under different projects to the high-ups for their personal use as they wanted to make happy the high officials close to the ministers and secretaries.

‘The authorities under different ministries and divisions offer luxury vehicles to the high officials at the ministries for personal use…It is a common practice in the administration,’ an officer said. ‘Some senior officials in this way get one vehicle from the pool and another from a department and his family uses the cars.’

Many such officials below the rank of joint secretary are using cars from various projects under different ministries, said the official adding that private secretaries to ministers and secretaries holding either the rank of deputy secretary or senior assistant secretary usually enjoyed car facilities offered by the departments and directorates under the respective ministries.

‘Some ministries have their own arrangements for providing car facilities for officials like PS, APS and PRO at the offices of the ministers.’

All these luxury cars, originally procured for project works, do not have an emblem for identification while each car or jeep of the government transport pool has a flag stand for a distinction, said a deputy director of the directorate of government transport, adding that the government cars had number plates in red till 1990.

The colour was changed into black and white at the fag end of the HM Ershad’s government to avoid the public wrath when an anti-government movement was at its peak, said the official who has been serving the transport pool for 27 years.

He said the transport pool provides a car for each minister and one microbus for use by the officials of his office.

The government has to spend around Tk 35,000 against each car for driver, fuel charge and maintenance as each official is allocated 180 liters of fuel a month, said the official.

During 1997-2009, the transport pool received around 900 motor vehicles from various projects while it has a total of 602 cars and microbuses of its own in operation, according to official record.

Meanwhile, the government has taken an initiative to procure 40 cars and 30 microbuses for its transport pool.