Once-defiant transport companies now make a beeline for a slice of the business cake as six-colour bus service under one-route, one-company franchise system begins soon in Dhaka, sources said.
As planned for a much-cherished modern mass-transport system to remove chaotic traffic, buses will run on six clusters of 42 routes -- each cluster marked with a common colour -- through the capital city.
The "mad rush" of bus operators began after a recent announcement on pushing through the stalled project on one-route, one-company bus service.
A special committee on the planned bus-route rationalization (BRR) announced resuming 'Nagar Paribahan' service on November 11 as first three bus routes under green cluster came to a halt following non-cooperation from bus companies last year.
Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA), the secretariat of the BRR committee, has received so far 80 applications from various bus companies which have shown interest in bus operation under the new arrangement, now that a change of wind takes place.
The DTCA had earlier declared operating the bus routes under blue, red, green, orange, purple, and pink colours -- each owned by a single company.
Though the DTCA selected the clusters based on several studies under the strategic transport plan (STP), sources said, none of the applicants had applied having understanding on the concept. For that, they are interested in their existing route or proposed new route which even is not found in the cluster.
"It seems that they (bus owners) want to get the route of their own choice and hold its control before other players get in," says one official. "I applied as others have asked me to do so...I do not know what is going on," the managing director of one of such companies told the FE on condition of anonymity.
He says his company is interested to run around 80 buses on the route his company has previous permit from the RTA as well as on a new route whose route permit is yet to get.
Currently, the city has been occupied with over 7,000 buses and minibuses run by more than 100 companies. But none declares the number of owners under these companies as one bus might have more than two owners in many cases.
The city bus services have always been running under ruling political party influence since the independence of Bangladesh, taking hold of the routes. The number of routes crossed over 450 for wishful selection by the bus operators from regional transport authority (RTA).
"As extortion is a regular practice in operating buses on specific routes or the routes of their own choice, many buses are running without route permits and with unfit vehicles and registration by bribing traffic police regularly," says one of the operators.
Such unruly bus service is neither passenger-friendly nor does it develop a culture of discipline in the operation in the streets, making the state of commuting here unique in the world.
The buses are run and owned under influential political leaders who muster the control after the change of government. After the end of Awami League regime, it is learnt that some pro-BNP owners have also reportedly taken over the position of respective associations.
Amid the situation, the DTCA finds having applications from different companies a hope-raising development as it broke the tradition of noncooperation in forming a company under a route.
After evaluation the applications, the DTCA has found eight proposed routes totally new but none of the proposed routes totally matches with any of the colours designated for routes.
It is also found that the highest 14 companies have shown interest in the blue route proposing to ply a total of 1350 airconditioned and non-AC buses.
Some 11 proposals are partially matched with red routes, eight with violet route, six proposals with green and five each with orange and pink routes.
Project Director Drubo Alam says, "The BRF has been designed to bring discipline in the city's bus service which has so far been running without any control of authorities concerned."
Though none of these applications would be acceptable, he told the FE writer, a committee will assess those and propose for the special committee on BRR to take action.
Though the BRR committee formed under the leadership of the late Mayor Annisul Huq proposed to ply 4,000 buses on the six-colour routes, later a decision was made to create a refinancing fund of Tk 1.0 billion in support of forming the BRF.
However, any business model has yet to be created to form each company.
DTCA Executive Director Neelima Akhter has said, "A 10-member committee will be working on the business model of the BRF and propose for the special committee to take necessary steps."
smunima@yahoo.com