BRTC school bus service
Students sufferings remain unresolved
Despite a great hope that the special school bus service will facilitate the city’s school-goers and reduce traffic congestion through discouraging private car usage, it has already lost its charm as it failed to offer desired service. The school-goers are not getting the benefit of the service properly as buses often come late due to traffic congestion. As a result, they can’t attend classes in time. Similarly they do not find the service useful while coming home. The guardians and the students complained that they don’t get buses in due time and the students can’t reach school in time. They accused too many stoppages on the route and huge traffic congestion for this. “We have to wait for a long time when we come back home after school. We manage transportation ourselves, sometimes hire rickshaw or ride on a local bus, because we become tired after school hours and prefer to go home quickly,” said a student of Dhanmondi Boys’ High School who travels from Mirpur Technical College area. He also complained that during return journey from school, half of the buses end journey at Kallyanpur instead of Mirpur-12. A driver of a school bus, however, said students tend to get on board and disembark at any point instead of the designated stations. This practice causes delay. “We become late in reaching the destination by at least 20 minutes even on a normal day,” he said. In addition to that, the students and their attending guardians are reluctant to use the service and they lack confidence due to mismanagement of the authorities. The service has already lost its appeal to them. A student has to fill up an information form provided by Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) if he /she intends to use the service. BRTC against their registration is to provide a card allowing their usage. But even after five and half months of its introduction, BRTC received response as the authorities delayed in providing cards for the students. Deputy General Manager (Operation) of BRTC Major Quazi Shafiq Uddin, EME, informed The New Nation that till on Sunday they received only 300 applications for registration from the students. “We will provide smart card to the students by October this year,” he hoped. A headmaster of a government school anonymously has said authorities are slow in providing the schools with forms for the cards. There should also be more buses, he said. BRTC introduced school bus service in the city on January 16 this year. It is now operating 14 buses against more than 26 top schools situated in the city’s busy Mirpur and Azimpur areas. The students who attend schools at morning shift are now getting the service. It is also limited to only one route-Mirpur-11 to Azimpur via Mirpur-1 and Kallyanpur. The BRTC hopes that the service will attract the car-riding students onto the public transport and thus help ease the city’s staggering traffic congestions. It also hoped to extend the service to other routes by June this year if the experiment proves a success. But BRTC is not going to extend it in near future because of losses it now suffers and reluctance of the car rider to have the service. However, the government has to give Tk 6 lakh subsidy per month to run the service. Even so, they are hopeful of its being successful and popular among the students and their guardians. “The service is yet to be successful because the guardians lack confidence on it. We are working hard and will extend the service to other routes of the city by January next year provided that there are more buses available,” said Shafiq. Moreover, the guardians of the students, who study at English medium schools situated at Mirpur Road and adjoining Dhanmondi area and reside by surrounding areas, are reluctant to send their children by bus. On condition of anonymity, another principal of an English-medium school at Dhanmondi has said a school has an average 5,000 students, most of whom live in Dhanmondi and surrounding areas. For them the bus service will not be useful. “Car owners don’t want to send their children by bus for security and safety reasons,” he said. Besides, government was to provide bus sheds at designated stoppages. But traveling from Technical to Azimpur, no bus-shed were seen and at some designated stoppages, there was no signboard indicating the place as a school bus stoppage. Explaining this situation Shafiq said the Dhaka City Corporation (DCC) was to set up bus-sheds in respective stoppages. But they were not acting properly, he claimed.
-With The New Nation input
