The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) has decided to clamp down on discoloured and unfit vehicles, mainly buses in Dhaka city from 1 July. The road transport regulatory authority chief said that they would conduct mobile courts and dump discoloured and unfit buses from the city streets.
BRTA Chairman Nur Mohammad Mazumder told Bangladesh First they have given the bus owners sufficient time to revamp their buses and comply with the fitness guidelines for vehicles.
“We will conduct drives after 30 June. We will not allow discoloured and unfit vehicles and will dump discoloured and unfit ones,” said Nur Mohammad Mazumder.
“We will be very strict this time,” he added.
“The Dhaka city roads have long been filled with discoloured, disfigured and unfit buses. The condition of many buses is so tumbledown that these buses made headlines,” Road Transport and Bridge Minister Obaidul Quader had said expressing his dissatisfaction with the condition of the buses plying the city streets.
“Even after repeated requests, the faces of the buses do not improve. Will I paint the buses?” the minister said while opening a ramp of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway in earlier this year.
At a programme in May at a city hotel, the minister said that the conditions of buses of small countries in Africa are much better than the buses that ply Dhaka city streets.
Following the minister’s remarks, the BRTA asked the city bus owner to make a list of unfit buses and revamp the ramshackle buses.
The BRTA published a circular asking the bus owners to renovate the discoloured and fix the unfit buses by 31 May.
However, the bus owners sought time; at that time, BTRA gave till 30 June to revamp the buses.
Bangladesh Road Transport Owners Association Khandaker Enayet Ullah said they welcome the initiative of taking action against vehicles that do not comply with the rules and regulations of the regulatory authority.
“I would say BRTA should take action against the buses. Otherwise, they will not fear the BRTA,” said Khandaker Enayet Ullah.
However, transport experts are saying that BRTA’s initiative of cracking down hard on dilapidated and unfit buses will not be successful until the authorities implement the bus route franchise in the city.
Professor Shamsul Hoque at the Department of Civil Engineering of the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said such initiatives have been taken multiple times over the last 10 years and BRTA has failed to implement such initiatives.
“When such initiatives are taken and bus owners withdraw from the streets, the city dwellers have to suffer from sufficient buses as a result the BRTA have to back off from implementing the initiatives,” said Professor Shamsul Hoque.
He said the only way to get rid of the ramshackle buses from the city streets is to implement the bus route franchise prescribed in the Revised Strategic Transport Plan (RSTP) for Dhaka.
“BRTA is going to launch drives to stop discoloured and unfit buses from the street without keeping any alternatives for city passengers as a result the passengers will suffer,” said Professor Hadiuzzaman at the Department of Civil Engineering of BUET.
“I have not seen any alternative for the passengers. Before taking such initiatives, the authority will have to make sure that the passengers do not have to suffer. To do so, the authority will have to keep the same number of buses as they will remove,” Professor Hadiuzzaman added.
He said authorities will have to implement bus route franchises, which will ultimately phase out tumbledown buses from the city streets.
