Thousands of families in Savar have been struggling to make ends meet as the ongoing nationwide blockade imposed by BNP-led 20-party alliance has put around 12,000 truck drivers and helpers out of job.
This correspondent visited the truck station in Aminbazar, and talked to a number of truck drivers and helpers, who complained about the 15 days of no work and no pay. “We have not been able to get the trucks out in the streets for 15 days due to the blockade. We somehow made it this far with the savings that we had, but now that is almost gone.
Some of us have been running households by borrowing money from others. If this situation remains, we will not survive,” they said.
Sources at Aminbazar Inter-District Truck Drivers’ Association said there are around 6,000 trucks in Aminbazar truck station. Each vehicle has a driver and a helper. Most of these drivers and helpers are the sole earning member in their families. So, around 12,000 families are suffering because of the blockade.
Abu Nayeem, a truck owner in Aminbazar, has three trucks in Aminbazar station. “On the first day of the blockade, one of my trucks was attacked on its way to Dhaka from Bogra; miscreants broke its windscreen. Since then, I have not gotten my trucks out in the streets,” he said.
“But I have to pay the drivers and helpers of my trucks every day. Without any earnings from my trucks in the past 15 days, I have been paying my staff from my savings. But my emergency fund is depleting, and when it is all gone, my staff and their families will be out in the streets,” Nayeem said.
No respite from the situation Wasim, a truck driver, said he had been earning his livelihood by driving trucks for the past five years. Being the only earning member in his family of seven, he has used up all his savings to provide for the family. “Now I have nothing. How am I supposed to run my family?” a dejected Wasim asked.
Wasim’s pleas was voiced by many truck drivers. One of them was Mohammad Hashem, who moved to Dhaka from Ghoraghaat, Dinajpur 15 years ago. His family of five have had a comfortable life so far with his earnings from truck driving.
“But this blockade is ruining me. My family depends on my earnings, and I have not been able to earn anything in 15 days,” Hashem told the Dhaka Tribune. “We are victims of this political violence. Those who impose the hartals and blockades, and those who try to resist those events – both seem to be passing their days without trouble. It is us who are out of work, who are suffering because we cannot povide for our families. We have nowhere to go,” said the drivers and helpers. Furthermore, the drivers and helpers as well as the owners of the trucks claimed the police escort that the government had promised is severely inadequate.
“The police escorts the goods carrying trucks and other vehicles for only a few kilometres, and then they leave us on our own. Those who do get their vehicles out have to do so at their own risk. In some cases, the pro-blockade activists have attacked the drivers and helpers besides vandalising the vehicles,” they said.
The Dhaka Tribune contacted Ashraful Azim, additional superintendent of police in Dhaka, in this regard, who claimed security is provided to all vehicles running on the highways.
“Extra police personnels have been deployed at the important points on the highways to prevent the attacks on vehicles. We have also increased the number of patrol teams for the roads,” he said.
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