Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)- Dhaka’s transport operators are charging arbitrary fares from passengers defying the government's decision on fair hike. Passengers are being forced to count extra fares in absence of any government monitoring by the authorities concerned.
Due to the uneasy situation, many of the passengers often get involved in altercations with transport workers over bus fares.
"I was used to pay Tk 10 for travel from Shyamoli to Paltan but today the conductor charged me Tk 15 illegally, which is really difficult to tolerate," Abul Kalam, a passenger, said.
Md Mohsin, a businessman, said that he used to pay Taka 12 to travel from Gulistan to Rampura, but for the last few days bus operators were charging Tk 13.
Humayun Kabir, another passenger from Mirpur area, said Ena Paribahan, which had charged Tk 23 a few days back for travelling from Mirpur to Gulistan was now charging Tk 26.
Mr Kabir also claimed that the transport owners hardly maintained the quality of services against 'non-stop' and 'sitting', for which they charged additional fares from passengers.
The city's transport owners failed to justify the recent abnormal hike in fares in the metropolitan area.
The president of Dhaka City Bus-Truck Owners Association, Khandaker Rafiqul Hossain, said that whatever hike the fares were witnessing was due to the 'one-sided decision' taken by Enayetullah, owner of Ena Paribahan.
According to him, Ena Paribahan first increased the fair, then the other transport owners have also come up to increase fares.
The government earlier at a meeting with the transport owners and workers raised fares of inter-district and long-distance vehicles, which run on fuel oil, by 0.10 per cent.
At the meeting, the communications minister also announced that transport fares would not be raised in Dhaka and Chittagong metropolitan areas as most of the vehicles there are operated by compressed natural gas (CNG).
But paying little heed to the government decision, a number of transport operators on the city routes have enhanced fares by around twenty per cent.
The government on January 3 increased the prices of diesel and kerosene by BDT 7.0 a litre, and octane and petrol by BDT 5.0 a litre to reduce its subsidy burden.
On the contrary, they demanded of the government not to increase the price of CNG again to avoid further rise in transport fares.
There are widespread allegations that the public transports of the city, such as buses, trucks, auto rickshaws and taxi cabs, run mainly on CNG, but charge fares similar to those run on fuel oils.
Transport owners, without explaining the reasons, claimed that the public transports run on CNG were counting a significant amount of losses every year.
However, the CNG auto rickshaw and taxi-cab drivers have been found charging abnormal fares along with buses.
In the meantime, leaders of Passengers' Welfare Association of Bangladesh urged the government to cancel the registration and take action against the owners of those buses, which have raised the transport fares following the latest fuel price hike.
BBN/SSR/AD-16Feb13-11:05 am (BST)