Transport operators won't listen to reason

This Eid-ul-Fitr is going to draw bigger homebound crowds at the bus and launch terminals, railway stations and airports. One of the reasons for this is that the government and private company employees, students and others will be enjoying longer Eid holidays this year. So, more people will leave Dhaka to reunite with their families living in the different districts as well as in the countryside. As usual, transport companies are trying to make the most of this opportunity to do brisk business. In fact, there is nothing wrong with doing good business by transporting people to the districts outside the capital city. But greedy transport companies often take undue advantage of the Eid rush and fleece travelers by illegally increasing land, water and air transport fares. Reports have it that they have already been charging excessive fares from the Eid travellers on the road, river and air routes.

Passengers travelling by both air conditioned (AC) and non-air conditioned (non AC) buses from Dhaka to the northern districts, the leader of a passengers welfare body, Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity (BJKS), have reportedly alleged, are being forced to pay Tk 300 to Tk500 in excess of the actual fares. Similar allegation has also been made by the BJKS leader against buses plying the Chattogram to northern district routes. Worse yet, as reports further go, the bus operators are even behaving rudely with the passengers in a bid to fleece them, though the government had earlier pledged that strict measures would be taken against any excesses committed by transport operators against passengers. But the transport operators seem not to be in a mood to listen to any exhortation or be cowed into obeying any directive from any quarter including the government. Earlier, the transport operators would often complain that they increased fares because they had to make up for the losses they incurred due to paying extortion money to various political agents and associations at different points of bus or launch routes till they reached their destinations. But no such excuse should be applicable now, according to BJKS, because the roads and waterways have now been rid of such rent-seekers. But reports in this connection evidently go against such expectations. In reality, the transport operators won't pay heed to any logic to miss this grand opportunity to earn as much profit as possible by overcharging the Eid passengers. The government, the home department to be specific, should have been ready for such eventualities, particularly on the bus routes and waterways, and deployed adequate forces from the police and, if necessary, from other law enforcement departments. At the same time, it should have mounted strict monitoring at all sensitive points along the travel routes of different modes of transport. Such measures could have at least reduced the number and frequency of the instances of such public harassment, if not completely remove those.

The situation during religious occasions is going to turn more problematic in the coming days. Consider that this time about 12 million people, according to an estimate, are going to move out of Dhaka within the span of the last four days before the Eid. That means, it amounts to 3 million people leaving the capital city every day. So, the pressure on both the public and private transport sectors, which are still quite inadequate to handle it, will be unprecedented. The public sector transports, according to a study, can deal with only 2.2 million passengers. Majority of the passengers, some 800,000, use buses and minibuses, while 105,000 travel by train and 1250,000 travel, in most cases, by unsafe launches on the waterways. It is obvious, the train service needs improvement in terms of both capacity and quality of service. Increasing safety of the launch service is of paramount importance. So is the case with bus service. To make future Eid travels safer, the government will need to concentrate on these issues in earnest.

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