Anarchy in city transport fares

Dhaka commuters are in a fix as bus operators, human haulers and other transports have hiked fares arbitrarily. Investigative journalism by a leading Bangla daily reveals that most bus operators have not bothered to put up government-fixed fare charts in their buses and fares are being charged as per the will of owners of privately owned buses. The situation gets more chaotic when one takes into account smaller transports like mini-buses and the so-called "legunas" and "human haulers", which conveniently fall out of the purview of any government oversight. This is a failure of enforcement by Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) and something needs to be done about it.

While the government increased fare by Tk 0.10 per kilometre with the increase in CNG prices, we are witnessing increases far greater than what has been decided by authorities. According to the revised fare charge, a trip from Mirpur 1 to Motijheel (via Farmgate), a distance of 13 km, should be Tk 21 per passenger. The interesting thing is that prior to raising of fuel prices, the fare was already Tk 23, which has now been raised to Tk 27 by bus operators.

That privately owned bus operators can and do charge whatever fare they feel like is a direct challenge to the writ of BRTA. So who looks after commuters' interests if not the BRTA? Why should commuters be left in the lurch because the authority responsible for enforcing a government decision fails to live up to its obligations? The situation is unacceptable and we hope remedial measures are going to be taken against errant operators.