Capital city Dhaka caught in the flux

Mahmudur Rahman writes for DOT : 
The choking pollution that Dhaka faced a decade and a half ago was due largely to the the two-stroke baby-taxis as well as bulk of vehicles using petrol with dubious exhaust systems. Conversion to Compressed Natural Gas led to the baby taxi becoming a CNG forever and made a stark difference but it was the economic factor that led to private vehicles changing likewise.
This had an adverse effect on the availability of gas and we are now poised to shift again this time to Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG) that will add extra pressure on the exchequer in terms of import bills. Had all this not happened Dhaka Air would have been unbreathable and is a classic example of going with the flow of expectations. Unfortunately a major section of the automotive industry is now paying for not adjusting to changing preferences by having to cut jobs through Europe though there’s no single reason apparent.
Firstly the industry has been naughty. Volkswagen and Bavaria Motor Works (BMW) were fined in the billions for trying to dodge diesel emission standards and now Fiat-Chrysler has been caught putting aside $700 million for the same misdemeanour. Add a new preference shift to electric cars and Ford and Jaguar Land Rover have been caught with their pants down, the second company under Indian ownership. The inability to be up to speed with hybrid and electric cars plus the lowest Chinese purchase of foreign cars in twenty years has left them hamstrung with profits. Therefore, the first cost cutting casualty is jobs. Jaguar Land Rover is cutting 4500 jobs across Europe and Ford-Chrysler are reducing some of their 54,000 strong work force in the same region. BMW and Volkswagen have suggested similar cuts will take place though they point more towards the uncertainty of Brexit. Late last year General Motors invited Presidential wrath when it announced cutting 4500 jobs.
There’s opportunity in adversity and Bangladesh could well look at revamping the frugal turnout of Pragati Industries in manufacturing cars that suit the future rather than the present. There was a time when Pragati appeared to have a great future ahead but lack of policy vision led to its hibernation rather than progress.Looking to a future of electric and hybrid cars the move to make it a major import substitute needs to be initiated now rather than much later when the game is lost. In the next twenty years countries from India to Europe will have implemented fossil fuel less cars and the immediate challenge is the back up facilities for such cars in both servicing and powering them up. Europe already has introduced charging facilities at convenient locations and this is likely to be widespread in coming years. The US market buoyed by low fuel costs hasn’t taken the quantum leap towards fossil fuel less cars but it has the capacity to change quickly when the time is right. For countries like Bangladesh such massive change has to be gradual rather than overnight. With three hundred vehicles hitting the streets each day, measures will have to be in place to phase out older cars and newer cars will mean new technology. The writer is an author, columnist, communications specialist.