Poor monitoring deepens crisis
Most of the buses plying Dhaka roads do not follow transport committee orders concerning designated bus stops in absence of proper monitoring by Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and Dhaka Metropolitan Police.
The authorities concerned said that Dhaka Metropolitan Regional Transport Committee, popularly known as RTC, is in the charge of monitoring buses and the bus routes in the city.
RTC is comprised of members from DMP, BRTA and different bus owners’ associations.
RTC finalised the list of approved bus routes and number of bus stops on each route at a meeting on July 13, 2010 and later updated the list on December 7 in the same year.
But, most of the bus service providers did not follow the directions for stopping only in the designated bus stops and they even increased the number of bus stops at their will on each route.
Different bus service providers, namely Taranga Plus Transport Limited, Dibanishi Transport, Ena Transport (Private) Limited, Winner Transport, Ekushey Transport Limited, Megacity Service, Nisharga Transport, Midway Transport Limited, Belal Enterprise Limited, Bengal Motors, Anik Transport, Falgun, Pravati Banassree Transport, and Salsabil sat up new bus stops violating the list.
Several other bus service providers, like Shikar Paribahan, Mirpur United Service Limited, United Service, Silk City Service, Pallabi Super Local Service, Safety Enterprise (Private) Limited, Bikalpa Transport, Bihanga Transport, Choice Transport (Private) Limited, ETC Transport Company Limited and Balaka Services, never complied with directives on stopping at fixed bus stops, complained the passengers.
Rampura resident Suman Shahriar said that the route form Banasri to Mouchak has five bus stops apart from two fixed stops.
The buses take in so many passengers from the undesignated bus stops that the people waiting for buses in designated stops could not get into the buses.
The buses that regularly ply the route, however, are scheduled to stop at only five points, namely Mouchak, Kakrail, Shahbagh, Science Lab, and Jigatala.
Jihanul Islam, resident of Mirpur area, complained that the buses at his area did not follow the directives on stopping at fixed stops.
Buses also charge extra defying government rules though they pick up passengers from undesignated bus stops on the roads.
Association of Bus Companies’ senior vice-president Syed Rezaul Karim admitted the situation and said that DMP or BRTA did not take any measure against these bus service providers.
Rezaul Karim demanded a joint monitoring system comprised of the service providers, and members from DMP and BRTA.
Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Samity secretary general Khandaker Enayet Ullah, also the Dhaka Sarak Paribahan Samity general secretary, also admitted the situation and said that it was the law enforcers that should take action against the errant bus service providers.
BRTA engineering department director Mohammad Saiful Hoque said if any bus or minibus did not follow the rules, DMP could force them to maintain the rules.
‘We are a regulatory body and DMP is a law-enforcing body,’ he said, ‘So they have more responsibility than we have to check the irregularities.’
The DMP deputy commissioner of traffic (south), Najmul Hussain, said that the situation would remain unchanged until the drivers and passengers follow traffic rules.
Courtesy of New Age
