Badrul Ahsan :
More than a million of motor vehicle owners across the country may face serious setback in operating their vehicles from 1st January due to government’s embargo.
Aiming to control crime, to identify miscreants and to stop hijacking of vehicles, the government on 14 October 2015 in a circular banned the plying of the motor vehicles without digital number plates from 1st January 2016.
According to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), 0.73 million plates have been set as on December 30, 2015 out of 1.5 million applications, leaving fate of nearly 1.0 million motor vehicle owners in the state of uncertainty.
According to BRTA, there are around 2.4 millions of motor vehicles across the country. Of which around 1.6 millions are in operation. Sources at BRTA said, the office has so far readied nearly 1.0 millions of digital number plates. “It is because of poor resources,” the officials said.
“As we received the applications late, we could not deliver all of those in time,” Md Nazrul Islam Mia, Chairman of BRTA said. “We are working hard to prepare the remaining plates. But it will take several months more,” he said.
“We have requested the government to give us three months more to complete the work,” he informed.
However, according to the official data, owners of several thousands of motor vehicles and bikes in the city are yet to apply for the new plates.
Besides, a good number of owners who live outside the capital are yet to apply for the BRTA new number plates, the data showed.
Meanwhile, experts opined that it would take at least two more years for setting digital number pates to the vehicles.
In Dhaka, 90 percent of private cars, 80 percent auto-rickshaws and 40 percent of buses and mini buses have come under the system, official sources said.
Besides, more than 70 percent of motorbikes are yet to apply for the new plates. The scenario outside the capital is more terrible than the city.
According to the BRTA data, the vehicles of diplomats working in Bangladesh are yet to come under the system, which will make them idle in order to avoid legal complexity.
BRTA sources said the government has been providing three types of digital number plates to the owners.
Green plates would be given to the rental vehicles, white to the private cars and yellow to the diplomat’s vehicles.
