This gives rise to narrowing the road space resulting in slowing down the flow of traffic causing bottlenecks and choking the city with standstill vehicles.

Situations like these increase the sufferings of those using the roads, as they have to spend more time on the roads than the job they intend to do. Vehicle owners are at a loss due to lack of parking, especially at busy points.

Shafiqul Islam, who came to the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) at Motijheel in his own car, was forced to park his car creating a third parking line as two had already been occupied, although a security guard of an adjacent bank told him not to.

Faisal Ahmed had his car parked in front of Shah Ali Plaza adjacent to the Mirpur 10 intersection and went in to complete some work. He suddenly received a phone call from his driver, informing him that the police officer on-duty was calling for a tow-car to remove his vehicle.

"Where should I park?" Faisal asked this correspondent who happened to be at the spot. "On one hand the market authorities have not made necessary arrangements for parking, and on the other, we are subject to police harassment," he said.

The police officer on duty told this correspondent that hundreds of buses and other vehicles pass by continuously. "A car parked at that spot would cause a huge congestion in a short time," he said.

The development, management and coordination of transport systems within the Dhaka metropolis fall under the purview of the Dhaka Transport Coordination Board (DTCB).

"Parking should be in proportion with the number of vehicles in use," a top DTCB official told Star City.

DTCB data revealed that after completion of the Dhaka Urban Transport Project (DUTP), the vehicle fleet growth in Dhaka in between 1999 and 2004 was 53 percent while vehicle ownership had grown by 64 percent within the same period.

"But no initiatives were taken to provide adequate parking facilities nor control the number of vehicles on the streets," he added.

Such inadequacies have also given rise to people spending more time on the roads as the vehicle movement speed decreased by 17 percent and travel time increased by the same percent.

"I leave home two hours before my office begins," said Farhana who travels from Uttara to Paltan.

According to the data of the Strategic Transport Planning (STP) for Dhaka, the average speed of the vehicles in Dhaka during peak hours is 13.6 kilometres an hour. STP consultants said that that absence of proper initiatives could bring the speed down to 5.6 in a short span.

DCC has some nominated parking places at Motijheel, Dilkusha, Baitul Mukarram, Shanti Nagar, Newmarket, Mohammad Pur Krishi Market which can totally provide parking for approximately 12,000 to 15,000 vehicles.

Sirajul Islam, DCC's chief town planner told Star City that most house owners especially those owning high rises violate the building designs approved by the Rajdhani Unnayan Katripakhha (Rajuk) and use the ground floors for parking only the flat owners' cars while guest cars are parked outside the buildings. In the cases of shopping malls, there is never enough space for paring all the vehicles.

Citing the example of a large hospital building in Dhanmondi, he said: "The owners have shown ground floors as parking spaces, but are in fact using it for different purposes."

"A large number of commercial buildings especially banks, have parking spaces but only for their own vehicles and their customers have to park along the road," he said.

He emphasised on compelling markets to build more parking floors to reduce occupancy of road lanes, keeping the road free for vehicle movement.

He further said that although street parking is a major cause for traffic congestion, it cannot be totally eliminated but negative effects can be reduced with proper planning.

Parking demands can be controlled if authorities adopt restrictive and non-restrictive parking.

"Restrictive parking should be adopted in the areas where the demand exceeds the available space and this could be enforced through pricing and regulatory mechanisms," he said.

There should be regular monitoring of parking provisions in all buildings. Private sector can be encouraged to operate parking facilities to augment parking capacity in different zones, he added.

Feroz Al Mujahid Khan, deputy commissioner of DMP Traffic (South) talked about the difficulty to maintain traffic in the city due to lack of parking space.

He said, "How can you maintain the smooth flow of traffic if the roads are blocked by stationary vehicles".

He added that universities are established in small buildings in residential areas that do not have parking facilities of their own and vehicles occupy space alone the main roads beside the university.

"What could a traffic police officer do in a situation like this?" he asked.