Staff Reporter :
About Tk 182.42 crore additionally are being collected from passengers daily by the public transport owners and staffers in the capital city Dhaka.
Besides, passengers are being regularly harassed, insulted and on occasions killed when they protest against such chaos, or if passengers protest against the extra fare violating the government fixed fare chart. Even, conductors of some buses have given life threat openly to passengers if asked to collect as per government fixed fare chart.
According to multiple sources, different types of transports like Dishari, Tanjil and Bahon Paribahan of Chiriakhan route, Ramzan and Tarabga Plus of Mohammadpur-Rampura route, Midway and Malancha of Mohammadpur-Syedabad route, Welcome and Savar Paribahan of Gulistan-Savar route are frequently charging extra fare instead of government fixed fare.
If any passenger challenges for charging high-the conductors of the busses threaten the passengers and don’t bother about the government approved fare chart, many passengers allege.
Passengers in view of this suggested the government to conduct mobile courts by the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) on a regular basis.
Secretary General of Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity Mozammel Haque Chowdhury brought the allegations during a discussion meeting held at the Jatiya Press Club on Tuesday.
Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan organized the programme on the occasion of ‘Jatri Odhikar Dibosh-2022’.
“Public transport owners and staffers in Dhaka are forcing commuters to pay an additional Tk182.42 crore on some 3.5 crore on average daily trips. We want effective action against the involved people in this sector to stop the anarchy of collecting excess fare,” Mozammel Haque Chowdhury said.
Speakers at the event alleged that due to such a spree of collecting extra fares from the people, the country is seeing an alarming rise in social unrest, commodity prices, and crime rates.
Secretary General of the organisation Mozammel Haque Chowdhury said, “Fuel prices have been increased twice in the past one year. Fares of different modes of public transport were hiked at an unusual rate on the plea of oil price hike. This has made the transport sector very unstable and even the government fixed fares are not being followed by the drivers and conductors in the city.
“When passengers decided to protest such irregularities, 25 of them were humiliated, 14 were thrown out of the buses and killed while 10 others were seriously injured,” Mozammel Haque Chowdhury added.
The recommendations made by JKS to mitigate the ongoing transport sector crisis include — a complete reform of the transport sector; introduction of cashless digital fare collection system; revision of all transport fares; and up to Tk2 lakh fine against transport owners, and staffers for charging passengers extra.
