A new taxicab service has been inaugurated in the capital, ushering in a new hope among the city dwellers depriving of expected taxicab services.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has opened the new taxicab service at Army Golf Club in the capital on Tuesday. During inauguration, she has directed the authorities concerned to fix the fare of the taxicab at Tk 85 instead of Tk 100 for the first two kilometres.
The PM hoped that the trust would make efforts to earn confidence of the people by ensuring their safe and comfortable journey.
Communication Minister Obaidul Quader, Chief of Army Staff and Chairman of Army Welfare Trust General Iqbal Karim Bhuiyan and Chairman of Trust Transport Services Major General AKM Mujahid Uddin also spoke at the function.
The Trust Transport Services will initially operate in the capital 27 taxi cabs of minimum 1500 cc engine of Premio, Allion, Probox and Axio models purchased from Japan's Toyota automobile manufacturer company.
Another private organization, Toma Group, will also operate the same kind of 19 air-conditioned taxicabs preliminarily.
The two companies would operate 600 taxi cabs in Dhaka and Chittagong.
All the taxi cabs will have the most sophisticated technological facilities including GPS systems, vehicle tracking systems and wireless technology to track and trace the cabs of this type running around in the country.
The fare has earlier been fixed at Tk 100 for the first 2km, Tk 34 for each subsequent km, and Tk 8.5 for two minutes' waiting for air-conditioned cabs. For non-AC ones, it is Tk 50, Tk 20 and Tk 5 respectively.
