MOST buses of Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation have become out-of-order long before expiry of their economic life for procurement of low quality vehicles and corruption in their maintenance. It is observed that brand new buses become poor and rickety within a few years of their arrival. The technical glitch was not natural or accidental rather resulted from corruption of some dishonest employees who fattened their pockets by leasing out the buses to private operators, keeping the vehicles without schedule maintenance, operating them with poor maintenance with an ill intention to pave way for new buses under new projects. All these have led to a decrease in the number of BRTC buses in service, which at the end pushes the government to purchase more buses.
Since 1972-73, a total of 3,011 single-decker, double-decker, air-conditioned and CNG-run buses and minibuses were purchased by the Corporation. Till date, as per official data, the Corporation has a total of 1,445 buses in its fleet, out of which 921 are in serviceable condition, 360 are under heavy repairs and 164 are beyond economic repairs. Road Transport and Bridges Minister recently said that though government purchases ultra-modern vehicles, after some days these become rickety with broken window panes.
Anti-Corruption Campaigners said the Corporation buys buses at regular intervals and then the buses go out-of-order for lack of maintenance. BRTC got almost all facilities including new buses, bus depots and maintenance workshops while no private companies had these facilities in Bangladesh, but at the end the state-run company struck in losses due to unbridled corruption. It’s proved that the BRTC is highly inefficient and highly corrupt. However, no action is taken so far against these irregularities.
To make the Corporation profitable, new and skilled manpower in operation department, schedule maintenance of buses, modernization of BRTC workshops, all sorts of facilities in depots and bringing more spare parts during procurement are imperatives. But before reforming and instilling new depot, the Corporation should be freed from corruption.
