DHAKA: The government proposed to raise the prices of both cars and their fuel in the 2010-11 financial year, commencing next month, as a monetary measure to ease the ever-increasing traffic jam in the capital city.

Finance Minister AMA Muhith made the twin-proposal to raise the price of CNG and the import duty on cars in the new budget he placed in parliament Thursday.

“The traffic jam is destroying millions of working hours of people,” the finance minister told the House, as honking gaggles of vehicles kept joining the big fleets everyday on Dhaka’s jammed streets.           

Spelling out another measure, aimed at increasing the motorway capacity, he said the government has planned to construct a 32-kilometer Elevated Expressway from Uttara to Jatrabari with the same purpose.

The construction of flyovers on Biswa road-Airport road connecting point and from Mirpur to Airport road and an overpass at the Banani crossing is now underway.

BDST 1950 HRS. June 10,2010               
IH/EH/MUA