MOVEMENT of common people in capital Dhaka has turned out as a crisis owing to lack of affordable, comfortable and easy means of transportation. Apart from a few thousand affluent people having their own or employer-provided motor vehicles, the rest cannot move to their desired destinations evading traffic jam. About 10 million such people are helpless. Neither have they financial capability to purchase motor vehicles nor get transport facility from employers. They have to depend on very limited available public transport. A lot of financial and administrative restrictions have been imposed on import and registration of low cost CNG auto-rickshaws. Two-hundred-thousand Taka CNG auto rickshaw costs Tk1.1 million to start plying in the city. The number of public large and mini buses, which plys on the city streets, is negligible. Moreover, available buses do not cover most of the areas of the city. It is a common sight in Dhaka that the male passengers indeed exert physical pressure to get on board a bus when a bus stops at a stoppage. In most occasions, the female and children passengers cannot avail of the bus competing with their male counter parts. They have to wait hours together for a bus to arrive at bus stoppages. Usually six to nine seats are kept reserved for female passengers theoretically though, but in practice male passengers mostly occupy those seats. If all seats for two each at the left column of the buses are kept reserve for female and children passengers, the conductors will need not encourage them to avail of the bus service. As female and children passengers have increased now-a-days, they will benefit from the affordable service to move in the capital. The Bangladesh Road Transport Authority should make it mandatory to keep all the left column seats reserved for female and children in public transports.
Md. Ashraf Hossain
120 Central Bashabo
Dhaka-1214
[email protected]
- Friday, 22 November 2024 |
- Today's FE |
- e-Paper |
- Beta Website
