‘Artificial crisis’ of buses holds Ctg-Patiya commuters hostage

Julekha Begum along with her five-year-old son came to the temporary bus terminal in Karnaphuli Shah Amanat Bridge area of the city to go to her village in Patiya upazila.

But she could not find a single bus bound for Patiya, 28km away from the city. However, buses for other upazilas in south Chittagong -- Anwara, Banshkhali, Satkania, Lohagara and Chandanaish -- were readily available.

Her son Shoeb was becoming restless as the mother and child were standing under the scorching heat for around half-an-hour.

Like Julekha, several hundred people bound for Patiya go through this ordeal on a regular basis. Passengers alleged that a “syndicate” of transport owners and staff created this artificial crisis of buses to realise arbitrary fare.

“Everyday we face the same situation,” said Ashiquzzaman, a private job holder who commutes on the Patiya-Chittagong city route regularly.

The usual fare from Shah Amanat Bridge to Patiya is Tk 20 but they increase fare according to their whim, said another commuter Probal Mitra, adding, “In the afternoon, when people return home from work, the fare increases up to Tk 40."

The Daily Star correspondent found truth in the allegation after a while. A Patiya-bound bus appeared all of a sudden and passengers were seen shoving each others to board the bus.

But some of them stopped as they heard the bus helper screaming, “Direct service to Patiya…the fare is Tk 40.”

When a passenger asked why the fare is doubled, the helper replied, “It's a direct service.” Yet some passengers were seen hurriedly boarding the bus.

“What can we do?” said a frustrated Sagar Sen, a commuter, adding, “The transport association cooperates with them and there is no one to look into our misery.”

Abdus Sattar Rony, general secretary of South Chittagong Passengers' Welfare Association, said around one lakh people of six upazilas commute through this route and of them, around 25,000 people commute through Patiya route.

“As Patiya is the nearest upazila, many people commute to and from their home everyday and bus owners capitalise the situation,” he said.

“The bus owners' association, especially, its leader Abul Kalam Azad is responsible for the suffering of passengers,” he alleged, adding, the situation escalates on every Thursday afternoon and on holidays when people go to their village home.

Contacted, Abul Kalam Azad, secretary general of Chattagram Zila Sarak Paribahan Malik Group, said “It's true that there is a crisis for buses but neither the association nor I are responsible for this.”

“We always try to keep buses available for the passengers but when the rush is high it gets hard to provide them as per demand,” he added.

Around 700 buses ply south Chittagong routes. Of them, around 90 buses ply the Patiya-Chittagong city route, which means there is only one bus for 278 passengers, he added.

“Owners are not interested to engage more buses in this route as they incur losses and face problems regarding registration and other issues,” Azad said.

When asked about the losses, Azad said, the maintenance cost of the buses are comparatively higher in this route as most of the times the bus returns almost empty after dropping off passengers.

He also claimed the buses on Chittagong-Patiya route were not overcharging the passengers and when this correspondent informed that he had witnessed such incident, Azad did not answer.

Contacted, Mohammad Shahidullah, deputy director of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), Chittagong, said the BRTA has no restriction on the registration of buses and route permits.

“If any owner applies for registration, we provide it after verifying documents,” he added.