Communications minister Obaidul Quader on Saturday inaugurated new air conditioned single-decker bus service in the capital by pressing 30 buses into service.
The minister, who was supposed to launch 88 such buses on long routes on the day to ease the transport crisis, said that the long route buses would be pressed into service before Eid-ul-Fitr.
The prime minister, Shiekh Hasina had handed over the keys of the 33 buses to the communications minister at Ganabhaban on Saturday morning.
Obaidul Quader formally launched the bus service from Farmgate in the afternoon.
According to the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation, the single-decker buses were procured from India under its credit line.
The communications minister said that the new buses on inter-district routes would help cope with the growing pressure of passengers.
A senior BRTC officer told New Age that so far 54 buses had reached Dhaka while the rest would arrive from India in a week.
‘For now the 30 buses will run on Motijheel-Abdullahpur route,’ he said.
Each of the 40-seat buses, made by Ashok Leyland, was purchased at the cost of about Tk 50 lakh.
The proposed routes for the long-route buses are Dhaka- Chittagong, Dhaka- Cox’s Bazaar, Dhaka-Dinajpur, Dhaka-Comilla, Dhaka-Rangpur, Dhaka-Pabna, Dhaka-Bogra, Dhaka-Rajshahi, Dhaka-Mymensingh and Cox’s Bazaar-Chittagong, said BRTC officials.
-With New Age input
