Sitting, Gate Lock Service
Buses off road in city to skip BRTA drive
Commuters bear the brunt
STAFF REPORTER
Thousands of city commuters had to face sheer misery as a large number of city buses remained off road to skip transport regulators drive against Sitting Serviceor Gate Lock bus services yesterday. A total of five mobile courts under five executive magistrates of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) ran the drive and filed a total of 122 cases against rogue drivers and owners who didnt abide by the provision of stopping sitting or gatelock bus services.
The BRTA magistrates conducted the drives in the Asad Gate, Agargaon, Tejgaon, Jatrabari and Dhaka Airport areas.
The BRTAs director of enforcement, Nazmul Ahsan Majumder, told The Independent that a total of Tk. 2,90,600 was realised as fines from buses that did not follow the BRTA directive. Four drivers were jailed and the driving licences of three drivers were confiscated in the drives, he added.
The BRTA has launched the drive along with representatives of Dhaka Sarak Paribahan Malik Samity, an association of owners of passenger buses in the capital. This is just the beginning. We will try to conduct several such drives in the next few weeks.
Meanwhile, complaints have been raised that while many buses have followed the directive of not providing the seating service, they have not revised their fare as per the BRTA-approved fare chart. Rubel Kanti Mohajan, a commuter from the citys Azimpur area, told The Independent that he is a regular commuter of Bihango Paribahan.
I go to my office in Moghbazar in that bus. I didnt find any revised fare there. It was as usual. When I asked the conductor about it, he said that they didnt receive any BRTA chart. They have only stopped the seating service.
When asked about this, the BRTA director said: Today weve conducted drives in five places. It was not possible for us to monitor the whole city.
But I assure you that our fare chart was given to the owners association and they told us that it had been circulated among all the bus owners.
Dhaka Sarak Paribahan Malik Samity president Khondoker Enayetullah told The Independent that over 4,500 buses under around 150 transport companies ply in Dhaka every day. We have made sure that all the bus companies got the fare chart. So, if any bus is found without the fare chart, the mobile court will take appropriate measures against it.
Talking to The Independent in front of the IEB building, Mohammad Mazharul Islam, magistrate of Mobile Court-2, said that they have filed a total of 30 cases and imposed fines of over Tk. 20,000 on different bus services for not having the revised fare chart and for extorting higher fares from the passengers.
The cases were filed as per Sections 39 and 40 of the Consumer Rights Protection Act, 2009, he said.
Munib Rahman, the BRTA magistrate posted in Agargaon, said some other cases were filed under the Motor Vehicle Ordinance Act for not having proper fitness, blue-book, or driving licences.
Today, however, we focused on ensuring that none of the buses can charge extra money in the name of seating service as there is no such service from today.
Meanwhile, road transport and bridges minister Obaidul Quader said the government and the members of the bus owners associations would strictly monitor the drives to ensure that these illegal practices never resume in the future.
Talking to reporters at the Satrasta intersection yesterday (Sunday) morning, the minister also expressed his hope that the drives would instil discipline in the transport sector. The minister inaugurated the drives at Satrasta.
He added that the government would continue drives against illegal bumpers, angles, or carriers in the buses, which often lead to accidents.
