Home ›› 10 Nov 2021 ›› Front
Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) ran mobile court operations in the capital on Tuesday to prevent public transports from overcharging passengers, but still fare anomalies were reported.
Passengers of several routes complained that they had been charged increased fares like Monday.
They also said the scale of BRTA mobile court drives was not enough as they still had to pay additional fares regardless of whether the buses run on diesel or CNG.
In the morning, 11 buses of Suktara, New Village Poribohon, and SB Link went to a CNG filling station in Gabtoli for refuelling. The buses travel from Gabtoli to Harirampur.
Though they run on CNG, they charged passengers increased fares at their counters at Gabtoli bus terminal.
A handwritten chart showing the new fares was seen at the Suktara counter. The countermen were giving passengers tickets that showed the increased fares written manually. The Gabtoli-Harirampur ticket was sold at Tk 100, which was Tk 80 two days ago.
Suktara counter supervisor Zakir Hossain told The Business Post the company had set new fares.
“We just obey what the owner says. We have nothing to do here. We are working under their direction.”
A passenger named Sumon Mia said he had travelled from Manikganj to Dhaka two days ago and paid Tk 80.
“Now they are charging Tk 100. We passengers are helpless. We have no choice but to accept what they say.”
The situation was the same at New Village Poribohon and SB Link counters.
When asked about this, a helper of New Village Poribohon named Humayun said they were not charging extra fares.
“We are charging fares set by the government,” he said.
Khorshed Alam, a passenger of Ayat Poribohon that runs on the Mirpur-Kamalapur route, expressed his displeasure about the bus fare hike, saying the middle-income people like him end up bearing the brunt of such situations.
“Anyone can increase prices of anything any time in this country, and the people have to tolerate that,” he said.
As part of its mobile court operations led by its Director (enforcement) Md Sarwar Alam, BRTA also fined a number of buses for charging extra fares.
Sarwar fined six buses Tk 35,000 during a drive at Mohakhali terminal while total fines amounted to Tk 2,83,500.
A BRTA statement said operations were conducted at 257 buses. Of them, 12 CNG- and 61 diesel-powered buses were fined.
The government earlier said increased fares would not apply to gas-run transports.
But some CNG-run buses not only increased their fares, but the hike ranged between 50 and 100 per cent like diesel-powered transports.
