Commuters fleeced in name of seating service

A survey carried out by Jatri Kalyan Samity on 310 buses in different parts of the city in the first week of Ramadan has found that 8 out of 10 passengers are unhappy with the random manner in which fares are being charged in the name of "seating service". Despite so-called seating service offered by buses, nearly a third of bus passengers stand on their trips despite paying extra for seating. Although this seating service was apparently discontinued on April 15 of last year, the practice continues in the absence of any regular monitoring by authorities. The last time BRTA conducted monitoring, bus owners withdrew their buses that were operating the so-called seating services and the drive was discontinued.

We feel that the drive must be a continuous one and mobile courts must be set up on a permanent basis. And this monitoring is needed for CNG autorickshaws too who invariably charge extra for trips. BRTA had made several recommendations to Dhaka Metro Regional Transport Committee (MRTC) earlier which need to be looked into. City corporations need to build city stopovers and counters for seating services, and only new buses with special permission to ply on specific routes should be allowed to offer such services to passengers. These were some of the recommendations that have not been looked into. As such, passengers continue to be at the mercy of ad-hoc decisions of bus companies. Authorities need to get rules of business in order to stop this unethical practice of overcharging commuters without providing the service.