THE transport operators were found on Thursday defying the government-fixed transport fares as private bus and minibus passengers in the capital and Port City Chittagong were paying extra amid absence of any monitoring by the concerned authorities. On the first day of enforcing the revised transport fares, the city commuters alleged that transport operators were charging much higher fares from them, simply ignoring the fare chart set by the government last month, as per report of a local daily.
Although Road Transport and Bridges Minister announcing the latest fare rate, made a firm commitment to strictly implement the fare chart with an 11-member monitoring committee in the capital, but no such monitoring was found on the day. The government revised on September 10 last the transport fares for CNG-run bus and minibus in Dhaka and Chittagong on the pretext of increased CNG prices in the country.
As per the decision, the bus fare increased to Tk 1.70 per kilometre from Tk 1.60. The fare for minibuses also rose to Tk 1.60 from Tk 1.50 per kilometre that is the increase per kilometre is 10 paisa in both the cases. However, the minimum fares for bus and minibus remain the same at Tk 7 and Tk 5 respectively. Passengers said transport workers were forcing them to pay more than the fares fixed by the government-fixed rate without hanging the revised fare chart, which often led to altercation among them.
According to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, the distance between Mirpur-1 and Gulistan is around 14 kilometres. So, the actual fare under the increased rate of 10 paisa per kilometre should be Tk 1.40 and the overall fare will be Tk 21.40 (Tk 20 + Tk 1.40).
The situation remains almost the same for other transport companies like Shikhor Paribahan, New Vision, Bikalpa Paribahan and ETC Paribahan which were charging Tk 3.0 to Tk 4.0 more than the government-fixed rate. The passengers alleged that they had to pay more than the government-set rates every time transport fares were increased in the past, thanks to lax monitoring by the authorities concerned.
The increase in fares must be logical and strictly maintained – while oil prices are falling worldwide – increasing CNG prices and fares makes no sense. Rather oil prices should be lowered to make it easier for people to travel using petroleum and not CNG. Not only that in chain reactions fuel oil price hike will affect all other sectors of the economy and make life of the commoners more miserable. Unfortunately, the government of the day bothers less with common good of the countrymen since they have no accountability to them.
