In the absence of government monitoring, risky assembling in the automobile industry continues unabated in the country.
Automobile industry insiders said state supervision and monitoring are non-existent in maintaining the load capacity, alignment, centre of gravity, and length and width of vehicles when they are assembled locally.
According to automobile industry insiders, currently buses are being built and assembled on truck chassis and in many cases chassis are being widened to increase passenger capacity.
A source in a local bus assembling company told the FE more than 80 per cent of the buses moving in the roads are not following the fitness criteria.
He said the dangerous mis-fittings are happening and the transport is getting risky.
An expert in automobile said there are separate and individual configurations in chassis buses and trucks.
He said as passengers' loads are dynamic and cargo loads are static so designs in chassis for buses and trucks are also different.
He said in safety regard there are some differences between the chassis of bus and truck.
He said bus chassis are built on special design as it requires load safety and comfort of the passengers whereas these things are mostly overlooked in case of truck chassis.
A Bangladesh Roads Transport Authority (BRTA) official said the assemblers import chassis with individual declaration for buses and trucks.
He said "If they build buses on truck chassis in that case we have nothing to do."
He said, "Our field level officers monitor the assembling process as per declaration by the assemblers but till today we did not get any objection from anyone."
An assembler, who both imports and assembles the world's big branded buses, said the field level BRTA officers are being "managed" and they do not monitor properly before issuing fitness certificates.
Another assembler said as the body building and private level assembling is new venture in the country so there a need for particular compliance that should be maintained in this niche sector.
Prfessor M. Kamal Uddin, head of the Institute of Appropriate Technology at the BUET, said when a vehicle is designed, its dynamic and static load, length, width, centre of gravity and eccentric loads are measured individually for cargo and passengers vehicles.
He said when it is mixed up and there are mis-fittings it causes dangers alignments that in many cases drivers cannot hold their balance.
He said it should be stopped and the BRTA should beef up monitoring for the automobile assembling.
He said to stop such activities, "I suggested the government form a body comprising BRTA, BSTI and the BUET and provide a particular policy support that the assemblers would maintain it."
Another professor at the BUET's mechanical engineering department said due to the present practice of building buses on truck chassis, the rate of accidents is increasing.
He said adopting unfair means in building buses and joints in chassis to increase capacity are two of the main causes that cause accidents.
He said there must a particular compliance in assembling buses and other vehicles that the assemblers would follow.
An owner of a body building workshop said it should not be allowed to build buses on truck chassis but in case of locally assembling it is happening without monitoring by the BRTA.
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