The transport sector anarchy

If we hear from the high-up of the government that transport owners are ‘powerful’ people and backtrack, it is the commuters who will continue to suffer

The Bangladesh Road Transport Association (BRTA)’s present drive to rein in charging excess fare by the buses and minibuses has apparently gone up in a shambles, because the government has decided to withdraw mobile courts and reinstated the so-called ‘seating services’ for 15 days. The whole affair has now become a bad case for the government. 
The BRTA, as it appears, is only able to make a chart of fare for the city, sitting with owners of mass transports in Dhaka city when price of oil or gas increases, but it apparently has neither the will nor the capability to ensure that transport owners or workers are charging fare following the fare chart. That is why the question naturally arises: if buses or minibuses cannot be forced to follow the chart why the BRTA takes the pain to make such a chart in the first place? 
The chart itself does not create problem. The problem arises when the commuters in the capital’s more than one hundred routes do not find suitable transport to go a short distance. For those who travel from the place where a particular route begins up to the place where the route ends, the ‘seating’, ‘gate-lock’ or ‘non-stop’ services do not appear to be much of a problem. But these services never fall in the category of town or city service. Town services or city services, by the definition, will ferry passengers of short distances. But in our Dhaka city, the greedy transport owners or workers, or they together, fleece the commuters by taking the full fare of a route from the commuters of a short distance in the name of these so-called ‘seating’, ‘gate-lock’ or ‘non-stop’ services.  
To stop this, transport owners made a commitment that from April 16 they would no longer have any of these services and take fare according to the BRTA chart. Everybody welcomed the news. But the real motive of the transport owners came to the fore when they made hostage of the commuters by creating an artificial crisis of transports in the city. For the last several days as the BRTA’s drive was going on to catch the law-defying buses through mobile courts. Even after the commitment by owners, their workers were often charging excess fare from commuters.
The plights of the passengers actually increased and the BRTA was forced to review the decision of cancelling the seating service. The point here is: it is the duty of the BRTA or communications ministry for that matter, to ensure comfortable and affordable transport services for the commuters in the capital for the commuters of both shorter and longer distances. But if we hear from the high-up of the government that transport owners are ‘powerful’ people and backtrack, commuters only have to pay excess fare and suffer.     

 

The transport sector anarchy

If we hear from the high-up of the government that transport owners are powerful people and backtrack, it is the commuters who will continue to suffer

The Bangladesh Road Transport Association (BRTA)s present drive to rein in charging excess fare by the buses and minibuses has apparently gone up in a shambles, because the government has decided to withdraw mobile courts and reinstated the so-called seating services for 15 days. The whole affair has now become a bad case for the government. The BRTA, as it appears, is only able to make a chart of fare for the city, sitting with owners of mass transports in Dhaka city when price of oil or gas increases, but it apparently has neither the will nor the capability to ensure that transport owners or workers are charging fare following the fare chart. That is why the question naturally arises: if buses or minibuses cannot be forced to follow the chart why the BRTA takes the pain to make such a chart in the first place? The chart itself does not create problem. The problem arises when the commuters in the capitals more than one hundred routes do not find suitable transport to go a short distance. For those who travel from the place where a particular route begins up to the place where the route ends, the seating, gate-lock or non-stop services do not appear to be much of a problem. But these services never fall in the category of town or city service. Town services or city services, by the definition, will ferry passengers of short distances. But in our Dhaka city, the greedy transport owners or workers, or they together, fleece the commuters by taking the full fare of a route from the commuters of a short distance in the name of these so-called seating, gate-lock or non-stop services. To stop this, transport owners made a commitment that from April 16 they would no longer have any of these services and take fare according to the BRTA chart. Everybody welcomed the news. But the real motive of the transport owners came to the fore when they made hostage of the commuters by creating an artificial crisis of transports in the city. For the last several days as the BRTAs drive was going on to catch the law-defying buses through mobile courts. Even after the commitment by owners, their workers were often charging excess fare from commuters. The plights of the passengers actually increased and the BRTA was forced to review the decision of cancelling the seating service. The point here is: it is the duty of the BRTA or communications ministry for that matter, to ensure comfortable and affordable transport services for the commuters in the capital for the commuters of both shorter and longer distances. But if we hear from the high-up of the government that transport owners are powerful people and backtrack, commuters only have to pay excess fare and suffer.