The single company-system bus service on the pilot Ghatarchar-Kanchpur route in the city is unlikely to be launched on April 1 as the stakeholders concerned could not yet complete necessary preparation.
Officials said the existing operators of the route have now raised a fresh demand to launch the service on an entire cluster instead of a single route.
They (operators) were also delaying the process by not responding to the policies on bus route franchise (BRF), formulated by the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA), they alleged.
A study conducted by DTCA earlier proposed to divide the city in nine clusters where cluster-specific colour buses will run under the BRF.
A cluster may have more than three to four routes as the study recommended to divide the clusters into 42 routes.
Sources said Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association (DRTOA) recently proposed the DTCA to launch the pilot BRF on one cluster, showing the ground that the Ghatarchar-Kanchpur route will cross through various routes where innumerable buses with multiple owners are being operated.
The special committee on the bus route rationalization (BRR) announced to launch the pilot route in a meeting in December and assigned the DTCA to carry necessary ground work.
The DTCA officials said that according to the bus owners' demand, the BRF policy for pilot route and joint venture company format were prepared and shared with the DRTOA.
But neither the association commented on the draft policy nor it helped forming the JV as agreed in the committee meeting of merging 150 buses under one company.
However, Secretary General of DRTOA Khandaker Enayetullah said they have been discussing on the policies and JV but alleged that no progress is made to provide them loan for remodeling the buses now being operated on the pilot route.
The transport leader also alleged that necessary infrastructures for the pilot route including bus bay and bus stoppage have also not completed.
Since the announcement of first BRF, DTCA wrote to the Bangladesh Bank for a Tk 1.0 billion fund to provide loan to the bus owners for remodeling the old buses according to the actual specification and cluster-specific colour.
According to the DTCA, they are yet to get any response from the central bank in this regard.
DTCA officials said all the issues would be discussed during the special committee's next meeting to be held on March 30.
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