Staff Reporter :
Transport workers are going through hardship as their income has been hit hard by the suspension of road communication since March 26 amid countrywide shutdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Workers say they are struggling to feed their families while house rent and extra expenses in Ramzan only add to their woes.
The extension of government-announced general holidays to May 16 has also worsens their sufferings.
In this situation, hundreds of workers on Tuesday staged demonstration and blocked the city’s Gabtoli bus terminal demanding food assistance and resumption of bus service.
They gathered in front of the Terminal in the morning and blocked the Dhaka-Khulna Highway for one and a half hours.
The agitators demanded food assistance and resumption of bus service across the country.
They alleged that they are passing inhuman life because of the closure of public transports due to the spread of coronavirus and for not getting any food aid.
The transport workers who took part in the protest said that their family members used to live on their daily income.
They said, “We are unemployed now and do not have food with us.”
Agitators said that they met their transport leaders several times, but they failed to solve their problems.
Workers called off their protest in the evening after getting assurance form Aslamul Haque, MP, and transport leaders.
However, Osman Ali, a transport workers’ leader and General Secretary of Bangladesh Road Transport Workers Federation, said, “We have been appealing to the Deputy Commissioners of all districts for help since the lockdown began across the country.”
But satisfactory response was not received.
“Some food aid was provided to transport workers in some districts, but it was not enough,” he added.
According to General Secretary Osman Ali, currently around 50 lakh workers are engaged in the road transport sector. Among them, around six to seven lakh are bus workers, three lakh truck workers, 15 lakh three-wheeler workers and five lakh easy bike workers, all of whom, get paid on a daily basis. The ban being effected, Osman said, these workers, especially the bus workers, have lost their work and income.
Bangladesh Road Transport Owners’ Association Secretary General Khandakar Enayet Ullah said that the transport owners are suffering due to the lockdown.
“The owners themselves are in danger. How will help the workers if they do not have income?,” he said.
“Yet, some owners are helping workers as much as posible,” he added.
