The Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) cannot tap the full profit from its services, as it has almost lost its control on the largest fleet of buses it has, thanks to the highest ever investment.
Sources said irregularities, mismanagement, corruption etc gripped the state-owned corporation in the recent days to erode its daily earnings from the increased fleet.
The BRTC added 945 buses to its fleet during the last four years at the cost of Tk 3.0 billion (300 crore).
"The BRTC actually does not have any control on its buses. It has no say about where to run the buses and where not," said a source familiar with the operation of the buses.
He said the buses were being run by private operators who were often found changing the routes at will.
Sources said in the absence of inspection by BRTC officials and depot managers, private operators were running the buses and even fixing fares and routes whimsically.
They alleged that a section of dishonest people fixed the target of income per day from each of the buses based on mileage and trip and thus created a scope of pocketing money from the extra trips.
"If they conduct four trips with the full capacity, they show two trips on the official record and pocket the remaining money," said one of them.
The FE correspondent also found some buses running on certain routes instead of the designated routes and the passengers were not being given any tickets for the journey.
Passengers alleged that the BRTC buses were running like other public buses ignoring all the designated pick and drop points. There was no ticket counter even at any of the points.
The electronic ticketing service which was also introduced for the BRTC passengers with the technical support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency was also not available.
"In history there was no BRTC ticket counter for passengers," said one conductor of an articulated bus while talking to the FE, when asked for the ticket.
Passengers on the Mirpur-Motijheel route alleged that without any notice, the number of buses on the route was being lowered on the working days. When asked, the depot manager concerned, however, said all its 20 buses were on the route.
However, BRTC officials at the operation section refuted all the allegations and said the target of income from for each of such buses had been fixed based on the mileage and the number of trips fixed in view of the situation of traffic on the roads. "But no buses are run privately," said the BRTC director (Operation).
He said they visit different depots to check pilferage, if any, on a weekly basis.
Sources said in the absence of keeping regular records on arrival and departure of the buses from depots, the actual earnings could not be tapped.
BRTC Chairman Jasim Uddin Ahmed, however, said the corporation's earnings during the last few months increased due to the improvement of monitoring on operation of the buses.
"We do not want to put burdens on the depot managers. The income is fixed based on the confirmed income, as the BRTC has to bear regular expenses on account of maintenance, loan repayment, salary and other facilities to its staff," he told the FE.
Road Division Secretary MAN Siddque said it was necessary to open a revenue department for the BRTC to supervise its fleet.
"The corporation for the first time in history has owned more than 1,000 buses, the maintenance of which has become a challenging task in the absence of a revenue department," he told the FE.
He said the state-owned enterprise was also facing many other problems like space constraints and shortage of manpower to render the service efficiently. So the full amount of income could not be tapped.
It was learnt that a shortage of drivers compelled the BRTC to allow outsourcing its buses unofficially. The drivers are hired on the basis of hours.
So any action against them would not bring about any change in the overall situation, sources said.
During the last four years, the BRTC bought 88 AC buses, 290 double-deckers and 50 articulated buses under a project involving $ 4.5 million, financed from the $ 800 million Indian Line of Credit, the deal on which was signed in 2011.
Earlier, the BRTC also plied 155 AC Daewoo buses imported from Korea and 300 low standard Chinese CNG buses. It also has single and double-decker buses imported from India and expensive Volvo buses imported from Sweden, many of which, however, have been declared economically non-viable.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
