News Desk : dhakamirror.com
The government fixed the economic life of buses and minibuses at 20 years and that for goods-laden vehicles, including trucks and covered vans, at 25 years.
In this regard, the Roads and Highways Division on Wednesday issued a circular which would be effective following a gazette notification.
In 2010, the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority banned buses over 20 years and trucks over 25 years on the roads of the capital.
Many old and dilapidated vehicles, however, continue to run on other roads in the country, including on the national highways.
The Wednesday circular also said that the economic lives had been fixed following the Section 36 of the Road Transport Act 2018.
According to the section, the government or any authority approved by the government can fix economic life of any vehicle by issuing a circular in a public gazette.
The BRTA website shows that the number of total registered motor vehicles under it till April this year was 57.1 lakh.
The authority, however, does not have any statistics as to how many of the total vehicles or of the unfit vehicles have gone past their economic life.
On August 3, 2015, the High Court issued a directive to the road transport ministry, asking that the police must keep unfit motor vehicles off the roads across the country.
Road safety experts and activists blamed old and dilapidated vehicles as a major reason for increasing road crashes in Bangladesh.
