From morning till late in the evening all major thoroughfares in Chittagong remain constantly clogged with traffic, mainly dominated by non-mechanised vehicles, heavy goods vehicles and buses.

Traffic department officials blamed the illegal rickshaws for the congestion and said since they had to allow trucks to ply during daytime to keep the port activities going, traffic situation is becoming worse day by day.

About 3,000 trucks are helping with the loading and unloading of cargoes in the port and there is no strategy on how to streamline this huge volume of heavy goods vehicles plying the main city areas.

"Considering national interest we cannot stop these trucks from entering the city areas during peak hours as in Dhaka, but we have to do something about it," said a traffic official requesting anonymity.

According to the Chittagong City Corporation (CCC) there are 35,001 authorised rickshaws in the city. But the Deputy Commissioner (DC) of the Chittagong Traffic Department, Jahangir Hossain Matubbar said he estimated that over 300,000 illegal rickshaws are plying the city streets, which is constantly forcing the traffic to an 'unbearably sluggish pace'.

Jahangir said illegal rickshaws, encroachments of main roads by hawkers and thousands of trucks and buses are causing most of the chaos in the port city.

He said his department is holding meetings with bus drivers and city officials to resolve the 'crisis' that is causing suffering to the entire population of 3.7 million inhabitants.

" In the city centres we are trying to evict mobile vendors occupying up to half of the thoroughfares, seriously hindering traffic flow," he said.

The DC is currently leading an eviction drive to recover a major thoroughfare near the city centre from the grasp of at least a hundred scrap metal traders, who have occupied it for over 20 years.

CCC sources said the number of illegal rickshaws has gone up drastically just six months prior to the mayoral election in May 2005 when all the political quarters took a lenient position towards rickshaw and its pullers in the city.

"The phenomenal rise in the number of illegal rickshaws is directly linked with the mayoral election, when aspiring political parties were trying to buy votes by encouraging those in the city," said a CCC official.

Town planners of the Chittagong Development Authority (CDA), however, said for a city like Chittagong the network of main thoroughfares is too inadequate. They said 60 square kilometres of the city are expanding at an annual rate of ten percent, adding roughly 1.5 lakh new settlers, but new roads are not being built.

"Moreover, there are many shopping malls, offices and multi-storied buildings being built without any parking whatsoever and this is severely effecting traffic movements," said a CDA Town Planner.

The port city has 279.46 kilometres of major road network.