Drivers of both four-stroke CNG-run auto-rickshaw and rickshaw have created anarchy in the Sylhet city by demanding high fares from the passengers following recent embargo on movement of battery-driven rickshaws.
The four-stroke CNG baby taxies are also charging extra money from the passengers as those are running without meters on the city streets.
The CNG owners and drivers are violating rules and charging fares arbitrarily. And the SMP authorities now remain indifferent to action against the defaulters.
Sources concerned said nearly 5,000 CNG auto-rickshaws are now plying in the Sylhet city and the drivers charge at least Tk 140 to Tk 150 from the passengers in a single trip from Station road to Dorghagate area, whereas the distance is not more than 4km.
The passengers alleged that the baby taxi drivers often force the passengers to pay the burdensome extra fare as there is no meter for fare in the taxis.
In the capital city Dhaka, the government has already affixed the meters of fare in the CNG baby taxies. But after withdrawal of the two stroke baby taxies from the city in 2002 the four-stroke CNG baby taxies were imported for Dhaka, Sylhet and other divisional cities in the country.
But the CNGs in Sylhet had been running without any meters of fare from the very beginning, which has apparently prompted the drivers of the CNG baby taxies to collect very high fare from the passengers over the last few years ever since introduction of the vehicles in the Sylhet city.
Following the recent ban on movement of battery-driven rickshaws in Sylhet, the baby taxi drivers and the rickshaw pullers have got an opportunity to rub salt to the wounds of the passengers imposing extra burdensome charges on them.
