The Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samityon Thursday protested possible move to hike the launch fares during the coronavirus pandemic.
The passengers' welfare association, terming such move as unethical and torture to the pandemic-hit people in the country, urged the government to take necessary action so that such fare hike would not be taken place.
The organisation's Secretary General Mozammel Haque Chowdhury in a media statement said that imposing increased-fare would be a torture as people across the country lost their jobs and are facing severe financial crises because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Furthermore, the “government does not have the capacity to reduce public transport fare once it gets hiked in any crisis or excuse,” as we witnessed in previous examples, he added.
“The livelihood of the people has fallen into a terrible uncertainty, and ordinary people are struggling to survive with their last resources in such a crisis of pandemic. And, due to job loss, thousands of people are rushing to the villages from the divisional cities of the country including the capital Dhaka every day,” he read in the statement.
Passengers have already fallen into crises due to the 60 per cent fare hike the public road transport, he added.
Meanwhile, the launches even in the pandemic are carrying passengers on almost every route without maintaining the government provided health guidelines to keep social distancing, he continued.
On the other hand, there is no example available except Bangladesh among the coronavirus-hit 205 countries in the world that has hiked fare of public transports, he added, saying “even in the neighbouring India, the fare of any transport has not been increased due to the strict stance of its government.”
With all these examples in hand, he demanded an immediate halt to the move of hiking the launch fare on the pretext of increasing measure to maintain hygiene in service.
He also demanded to stop toll-lease at launch and ferry terminals during the crisis.
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