Commuters charged extra Tk182.42cr every day: Jatri Kalyan Samity
JKS for up to Tk2 lakh fine against transport owners, staffers for charging passengers extra
Public transport owners and staffers in Dhaka are forcing commuters to pay an additional Tk182.42 crore on some 3.5 crore trips on average every day, claims Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samity (JKS).
The organisation, which deals with passenger rights, has brought allegations of charging extra fares from passengers in all modes of public transport.
Moreover, passengers are being regularly harassed, insulted and on occasions killed when they protest such chaos, the welfare association added during a discussion marking the 4th Passenger Rights Day in the capital on Tuesday.
Keep updated, follow The Business Standard's Google news channel
Speakers at the event alleged that due to such a spree of collecting extra fees from the people the country is seeing an alarming rise in social unrest, commodity prices, and crime rates.
Secretary-General of the organisation Mozammel Haque Chowdhury said, "Fuel prices have increased twice in one year following which fares for different modes of public transport were hiked at an unusual rate.
"This has made the transport sector very unstable. Government fixed fares are not being followed in the city."
"When passengers decided to protest such irregularities, 25 of them were humiliated, 14 were thrown out of the buses and killed while 10 others were seriously injured," Mozammel Haque Chowdhury added.
The recommendations made by JKS to mitigate the ongoing transport sector crisis include -- a complete reform of the transport sector; introduction of cashless digital fare collection system; revision of all transport fares; and up to Tk2 lakh fine against transport owners, and staffers for charging passengers extra.
