Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) authorities have reduced the number of vehicles under its special school bus service on the city’s Mirpur-Azimpur route, with most of the buses being reassigned to carry BRTC employees.
Although BRTC introduced the special school bus service in January 2011 with 14 buses, only five of those buses remain operational under the school service.
Despite recent directives from Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and Communications Minister Obaidul Quader to increase the number of buses under the service, the state-run BRTC reduced the number of buses without any specific cause.
A BRTC official, seeking anonymity, said the reduction came as authorities tried to fill the shortage of staff buses for its own employees. The school bus service was also suspended for a few days because of a shortage in buses, he added.
Hasina Akhter, the guardian of a Dhanmondi Govt Boys School’s student and also a frequent passenger on the service, said: “I usually wait for this bus, but I cannot find it on the road these days.”
“Only a limited number of buses operated on this route, when the service began in 2011. We urged the authorities concerned to increase the number of school buses, but BRTC is now trying to stop the service,” she said.
However, BRTC senior officials denied claims that the service was being suspended.
BRTC Director (Admin and Operation) Nikhil Ranjan Roy told the Dhaka Tribune: “The number of buses has been reduced in the service because of a lack of response from students and guardians for traffic jam on the route. However, the service is still going on.”
“Though the project is causing losses to BRTC, we will add new buses to the service because of the prime minister’s directive,” he said.
When the service was inaugurated in 2011, BRTC high-ups said with the help of Dhaka City Corporation, passenger shades will be erected at 33 stoppages on the route and women guides will be trained to pick up and drop off students.
Traffic policemen were also ordered to give priority to the buses to ensure that the children reach their destinations in time, while GPS technology was installed in each of the buses to help guardians track their kids through text messaging.
BRTC officials said the government had initially planned to introduce more BRTC school buses on other routes of the city, after evaluating the success of the service on the Mirpur-Azimpur route.
The BRTC school buses provides services to 26 schools situated at different areas from Mirpur 12 to Azimpur in the capital.
The service operates between the hours of 6am-9am and 12pm-3pm from Mirpur 11 to Azimpur via Mirpur 10, Mirpur 2, Mirpur 1, Technical, Kalyanpur, Asad Gate and Science Lab areas in Dhaka. L
