Owners of CNG-run three-wheelers on Monday postponed the 48-hour strike they had called from June 26 in Dhaka and Chittagong cities to press home their 10-point set of demands.
The Dhaka Metropolitan CNG Auto-rickshaw Business Owners’ Association announced the postponement after the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority officials sought more time for considering their demands.
BRTA chairman ALM Abdur Rahman sought the time at a meeting with leaders of the association at the BRTA office in the capital.
The association first announced the strike from May 26 but postponed it on May 24 after the BRTA sought one month to consider their demands.
At that time the CNG owners said if their demands were not met by one month, they would enforce the strike from June 26.
The association’s general secretary, Mohammad Faridul Islam Khasru, told New Age that the BRTA officials told them that they would need more time to meet their demands.
Around 6,000 of some 13,000 CNG-run three-wheelers, now plying the city roads, will be forced to go off the road from December, when their ‘official’ fitness ends, he said.
The economic life of a three-wheeler at present is 11 years. The three-wheeler owners demand that the government should engage experts from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology to examine the parts of these 6,000 minicabs to determine whether they could ply the streets for a few more years or not.
‘BRTA officials told us that they had already sent some CNG autos to the BUET’s mechanical engineering department for examination,’ Faridul said.
The other demands of the association include raising the amount of daily deposit by drivers to Tk 850 from the current Tk 600 per vehicle, increasing the fare proportionately, cancelling the National Board of Revenue circular imposing a Tk 2,500 income tax per three-wheeler on the owners, putting an end to the abuse of power by law enforcers of towing the vehicles away with wreckers and filing cases without specifying offences, and harassments and dumping of private CNG-run three-wheelers, if found to carry passengers on a commercial basis, in the dumping grounds of the city traffic authorities.
The association also demands adequate parking facilities, saying that no cases should be filed for the offence of parking at undesignated points of roads until there were enough parking spaces.
The demands also include taking stern actions against lifters of the vehicles, no more price hike of CNG and reducing the fine for carrying passengers without putting on the fare meter to Tk 700 from the current Tk 1,500.
-With New Age input
