Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samiti (BJKS), a passengers' welfare platform, on Saturday (January 20, 2024) demanded the government introduce 5,000 new high-quality buses on the streets under a company with the government's management by removing existing rickety vehicles from the capital.
Secretary General of the BJKS Md. Mozammel Haque Chowdhury raised the demand in a press conference organised at the city's Dhaka Reporters Unity on Saturday morning.
In a written statement, he said that the current government has pledged that the country will join the ranks of developed countries by 2026.
The government is determined to improve the public transport system in Dhaka and elsewhere.
Quoting a JICA survey, the BJKS's secretary general said that there are currently 4 crore daily passenger trips in the capital.
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There is a huge scope for transport business, and the transportation system of the city can be changed overnight through bus service if only extortion is stopped and dedicated bus lanes can be introduced, he said.
There are examples of owning 600-800 buses of many transport companies in Bangladesh after they started plying on the streets with one bus.
However, the state transport agency BRTC is not able to operate buses under its own management and is leasing them out to private individuals and institutions. The number of these buses is decreasing due to lack of maintenance, he added.
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He urged the government, instead of bureaucracy in the management of BRTC, if BRTC can be managed by appointing managers with technical knowledge and experience in managing bus companies from the international market. it will play a major role in the passenger transport sector besides making BRTC profitable, he said.
The BJKS said that due to incompetence of leadership, inefficiency of management, lack of proper monitoring and monopolistic dominance of political contractors, corruption is going on.
The new government has made political commitment to establish good governance in these sectors.
”We want to see the reflection of this commitment of the government by ensuring quality and accountability in every project involving road, rail, sea and air,” he added.