Claims Bangladesh Passengers’ Welfare Assoc
Passengers have to pay Tk 11,000 crore as additional fare to travel in different modes of transport during the Eid-ul-Fitr rush, claimed a report of Bangladesh Passengers’ Welfare Association yesterday. Of the additional fare, Tk 6,225 crore will be charged in road transport, Tk 4,000 crore in water transport and Tk 775 crore in railway sector during the rush from July 13 to 28.
The report was unveiled at the capital’s Jatiya Press Club yesterday, said a press release.
The report was prepared on the basis of media reports and information collected by the association’s 11 teams that visited different spots across the country, said the association secretary general, Mozammel Haque Chowdhury.
About the procedure of preparing the report, he said they took a bus as a sample and collected data on how much each passenger had to pay additionally and how many passengers could travel in that bus.
“Finally, we worked out the amount after calculating how many buses ply this route. We applied the same rule in waterway sector,” he informed.
In road and waterway sectors, private transport operators are overcharging, while in railway sector, there is ticket scalping, the report said.
Around 48 percent of passengers, who will travel by train, have collected tickets from the black market, Mozammel Haque claimed.
He demanded strict government monitoring to check overcharging and ease passengers’ sufferings.
Several politicians, academicians, and rights activists attended the function.
-With The Daily Star input
