Cry for new buses to replace unfit ones

FE Report | Published: November 13, 2014 00:00:00 | Updated: November 12, 2014 23:38:37

Communications experts felt the urgency of pressing into service new busses worthy of mass transit in the capital as the ongoing drive against gaggles of ramshackle vehicles created a crisis of public transport.    
Failing this, they observed, the outmoded buses, minibuses and smaller-yet vehicles would make a comeback whenever the much-trumpeted chase would be over.           
Witnesses said people's sufferings knew no bounds for scarcity of public transport on the third of the drive Wednesday.
"Hundreds of office-goers in the morning and homebound in the evening were seen waiting for long at each of the bus- stoppages in the capital for a vehicle," says a firsthand report.
It was seen at almost all the stations, throughout the day, in the overcrowded city that dozens of passengers throng a bus whenever it comes--already packed along the road.
The situation was worst on those routes where old vehicles used to reign.       
Scarcity of public buses and such sufferings have prevailed since Monday when the Ministry of Road Transport and Bridges launched a crackdown against the vehicles lacking fitness certificates and having other irregularities in Dhaka and other parts of the country.
Commuters, transport workers and traffic officials said many transport owners decided not to take out their unfit vehicles to avert getting caught, causing the crisis that came as too heavy especially for elderly citizens and women.  
Taking the advantage of limited bus movement, auto-rickshaw and rickshaw drivers charged extra fares from the passengers, especially those who had no option but to reach their offices and destinations at any cost.
Runa Akhter, who was looking very gloomy at Azampur bus station of Uttara, said she had waited for a bus for 40 minutes to reach her office at Gulshan-2.
"But I cannot reach gates of the buses amid crowds pushing and shoving to get in," she added.
She also failed to hire a CNG-run three-wheeler as drivers demanded much higher fares for the ride.
"Everybody wants to cash in on the crisis," she said.   
"I cannot get into a bus even in six attempts because of the crowd," Newaz Ahmed, who works with a bank, told the FE at Uttara in the morning.
He said owners of the unfit vehicles adopted the trickery of staying off the road only to put pressure on the government to stop the drive. They are creating artificial crisis of transport.
"We welcome the move although we're the sufferers as it is taken for public good and road safety," he added.
He is among many in the line of suffering who called for introducing good, bigger-size buses on the city routes immediately to alleviate the public sufferings.         
The situation turned for the worst in the evening when thousands of people came out of their offices together for their homes.
Such mad rush turned bus stations like Farmgate, Motijheel, Banani, Karwan Bazar, Paltan, Malibagh and Banglamotor into scenes of scrambles.   
Mohammad Ali, who had waited nearly 50 minutes at Farmgate to manage a transport to travel to Gulshan in the afternoon, said he decided to return home because of the scarcity of transport.
Scores of people were also seen trudging to reach their respected destinations on foot along the footpaths.
According to BRTA, nearly 33 per cent of the registered 2.2 million motor vehicles run without any fitness certificate in the country. A good number of those are plying the city streets.
When contacted, an official at the Traffic Control Room of Dhaka Metropolitan Police said the number of cases and volume of collected fines for violation of traffic rules had gone up since the drive got off.
The exact number of cases filed and fines collected throughout the day could not be ascertained till the filing of the report at 7:30pm.  

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