City dwellers have been facing tremendous problems for the last couple of days due to sudden stoppage of bus services by operators on some routes. A few days ago, they had gone on a wildcat strike demanding increase of fare following the price hike of diesel Tk 15 per litre. They called off the strike after the government increased bus fare about 27 per cent. Now they are showing reluctance to continue city bus services protesting the demand of students to allow fare concession. Students are not making a new demand. They avail the city bus services to go to and from their educational institutions. The practice was interrupted for one and a half years due to the pandemic situation. But now the educational institutions are open as the health directorate has been conducting a massive vaccination programme to inoculate a majority of students. Students’ demand for bus fare concession has led to some untoward incidents between the students and transport workers.
The students of a college in the capital on Thursday staged a demonstration occupying a part of the Mirpur Road for over an hour demanding fare concession for bus rides. The local police station took an initiative to minimise the situation. But it failed to cool down the transport operators and for that reason the number of buses on roads was thin yesterday. It is nothing unusual that country’s road transport sector runs freestyle. If the transport leaders want they can call complete shutdown for an indefinite period any time. They don’t need to issue any notice or call any meeting for taking such an easy decision. One thing they know well is that there is no one to challenge their authority as senior transport leaders are also members of the ruling party. The wealthy leaders can easily use the poor transport workers as they want. We don’t understand why the transport leaders are not paying attention to solve the problem when SSC and equivalent examinations are going on in the country.
When the people are bearing the brunt of random price hikes of essentials along with the educational materials, concession fare for students’ bus rides could be a slight relief for their parents. Many college and university students bear their educational expenses doing part time jobs, private tuitions etcetera.
As far as we know students everywhere enjoy low bus fares. So the demand of the students should have been met by the government much earlier. The students must carry their school pass.
