Staff Reporter :
The government has decided to end ban on the mass transport services, however, within only districts from today, on condition of maintaining coronavirus health safety guidelines.
On Wednesday, the Cabinet Division issued a gazette notification in this regard.
No inter-district transport services will be allowed, while launch and train services will remain suspended as per the previous restrictions, added in gazette notification.
But it is learned that thousands of transport labourers with their family members have been leading an inhuman life due to closure of transports for a long time due to the lockdown.
They demanded to resume transport movements throughout the country by following health rules.
Meanwhile, The Dhaka Road Transport Owners’ Association has also said that mass transport will run in all the districts including Dhaka metropolis from Thursday morning.
Khandaker Enayet Ullah, General Secretary of the Association, said in a statement on Wednesday.
Earlier transport workers staged various demonstrations in the city and elsewhere in the country last Sunday to press home their demand including the resumption of public transport maintaining health protocols.
Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said the government was considering the resumption of public transport services ahead of Eid-ul-Fitr. The minister also urged transport owners and workers not to resort to protests over the issue.
“Be patient,” he told the aggrieved transport owners and workers.
Public transport services were suspended in Bangladesh on April 5, when the government announced a countrywide lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19.
The government, however, has issued a separate gazette notification, extending the ongoing restrictions from May 5 to May 16.
Officers and employees of all government, semi-government, autonomous and private offices and banks and financial institutions must be at their respective places of work (jurisdiction) during the Eid holidays, added the notification.
