The government spends millions on the purchase of buses for Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation but fails to serve commuters in need.
During the opposition-called hartals and blockades recently commuters waited for hours for vehicles, but had barely noticed any BRTC-run buses plying on the city roads to serve them.
While some private buses plied across the city braving the risk of arson attack and vandalism during the last week-long blockade, the BRTC withdrew its vehicles from the city roads.
Some 500 BRTC buses run in the city as normal. The withdrawal of the buses during the opposition’s hartals and blockades adds to transport crisis and also sufferings of the commuters.
The Dhaka Tribune has learnt BRTC does not rein in the operation of its vehicles, rather private operators do that by taking those buses on lease.
They run the BRTC buses according to their own sweet will and business purpose.
Sources said the lessees decide when the buses would ply and when not.
The Dhaka Tribune found since the lessee operator did not want to run the BRTC buses during hartals and blockades, the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation appeared to be helpless to give support to the commuters.
Some private operators take the BRTC buses on lease. They run the vehicles, make profit and give a certain amount of their profit to BRTC officials, said a source.
The transport corporation high-ups and private operators have an alleged nexus between them who decide whoever to get the lease of BRTC buses.
The lessees do not want the buses ply during hartals and blockades as they won’t be able to profit much during this time, said a BRTC bus driver.
To run a bus they had to spend much on fuel, driver and conductor’s salary, and earnings during this unstable situation fall short and even fail to parallel the expenditure, he added.
The city people said they suffered much during the shutdowns as BRTC buses remained off the road.
“I had to wait for a bus half an hour at Farmgate bus station during the blockades. The crisis of vehicle turns severe at night as private buses do not operate fearing arson attack and vandalism,” said Selim Uddin, a private bank employee.
“I don’t understand why the state-run buses do not run during shutdowns,” he said with a sigh of disappointment.
Nikhil Ranjan Roy, director (Admin and Operation) of BRTC, admitted that they had given contract to run the buses to private operators who are mainly drivers and transport workers of BRTC.
“We have entered a contract only for increasing revenues, but this is not actually a lease,” he said.
Asked why they are not running buses during shutdowns and blockades, he said BRTC buses were the main targets of pickets.
“Usually, we run some old buses but dare not operate the expensive ones as they are the main targets of pickets,” said the director.
He, however, claimed that BRTC had a full control over its passenger vehicles.