Agonies of travel before the Eid
Tuesday, 30 September 2008
Mahmudul Islam
The common people in Dhaka city remain hard-pressed singularly for the rise in the costs of their living . The price rises have been relentless in recent months. In this situation of stress in their purchasing power, an additional one and a formidable one has been added : the fare of their tickets for going to their village homes have increased without any rationale or with no connection between the agreement between the bus operators and the relevant government authorities.
Not only the unreasonable higher fare, the home-bound people on the occasion of the Eid are facing other torments as well. The operators of many bus companies sold their tickets in advance to ticket black marketers well in advance. Thus, people who queued up before ticket counters in the small hours were told early in the morning that all tickets have been sold. But to their surprise they found tickets available at the hands of ticket black marketers who were selling the tickets not at the already higher charged fare rates of the bus companies but after adding an arbitrary additional amount to the same. Thus, a ticket for a travel to Rangpur or Dinajpur that requires spending of say, some Taka 300 including the increased fare charged by companies, may cost some Taka 400 or more when bought from a ticket black marketer. A very large number of people who fall in the lower middle class category, or further down, will be actually pressurized into buying tickets at such cut-throat prices for themselves and their families.
This has been happening, every year, for a long time and redress actions from the authorities or the government have been more eyewashes than giving realistic relief to affected people. There is no denying that in a few bus terminals of the city, there is an appearance of normalcy while in all the others scenarios such as the ones-- described above-- always confront the traveling people. The presence of orderliness or the presence of police and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in some bus terminals, thus, count for little in the face of the enormity of the problems or the persecutions faced by the people.
It was only expected that in view of such agonies of travel encountered unfailingly in recent times, the authorities would devise a plan and put it into operation to guard against such exploitation and harassment of the common people. But that was, unfortunately, not done. There is hardly any time now to improve the situation by deploying law enforcement people, preferably under overall supervision of the RAB, at all bus terminals in the city to take actions against black marketers or to oblige them to dispose off the tickets held by them at a reasonable rates. However, if such actions even at the last moment can help address the grievances of the common people, the government must take the same. Meanwhile, buses operated by CNG must be compelled to reduce their fares which are being charged at par with buses operated by the conventional fuels.
The common people in Dhaka city remain hard-pressed singularly for the rise in the costs of their living . The price rises have been relentless in recent months. In this situation of stress in their purchasing power, an additional one and a formidable one has been added : the fare of their tickets for going to their village homes have increased without any rationale or with no connection between the agreement between the bus operators and the relevant government authorities.
Not only the unreasonable higher fare, the home-bound people on the occasion of the Eid are facing other torments as well. The operators of many bus companies sold their tickets in advance to ticket black marketers well in advance. Thus, people who queued up before ticket counters in the small hours were told early in the morning that all tickets have been sold. But to their surprise they found tickets available at the hands of ticket black marketers who were selling the tickets not at the already higher charged fare rates of the bus companies but after adding an arbitrary additional amount to the same. Thus, a ticket for a travel to Rangpur or Dinajpur that requires spending of say, some Taka 300 including the increased fare charged by companies, may cost some Taka 400 or more when bought from a ticket black marketer. A very large number of people who fall in the lower middle class category, or further down, will be actually pressurized into buying tickets at such cut-throat prices for themselves and their families.
This has been happening, every year, for a long time and redress actions from the authorities or the government have been more eyewashes than giving realistic relief to affected people. There is no denying that in a few bus terminals of the city, there is an appearance of normalcy while in all the others scenarios such as the ones-- described above-- always confront the traveling people. The presence of orderliness or the presence of police and the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in some bus terminals, thus, count for little in the face of the enormity of the problems or the persecutions faced by the people.
It was only expected that in view of such agonies of travel encountered unfailingly in recent times, the authorities would devise a plan and put it into operation to guard against such exploitation and harassment of the common people. But that was, unfortunately, not done. There is hardly any time now to improve the situation by deploying law enforcement people, preferably under overall supervision of the RAB, at all bus terminals in the city to take actions against black marketers or to oblige them to dispose off the tickets held by them at a reasonable rates. However, if such actions even at the last moment can help address the grievances of the common people, the government must take the same. Meanwhile, buses operated by CNG must be compelled to reduce their fares which are being charged at par with buses operated by the conventional fuels.