There should no counter of Sylhet, Cumilla-bound buses outside Sayedabad terminal
The Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) has issued directives asking transport owners and workers to keep the ticket counters of all Sylhet- and Cumilla-bound buses from Dhaka inside the Sayedabad Bus Terminal.
Besides, the buses leaving for the two destinations have to be parked inside the terminal instead of parking on the street.
On Sunday, the DTCA sent a letter to the transport owners and workers with this instruction. Copies of this letter were also sent to the two city corporations of Dhaka, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority, police and other law enforcement agencies.
The letter said the decision to keep the counters of all buses to Cumilla and Sylhet inside the terminal was taken in a meeting of Dhaka South on 1 May. The decision was supposed to be implemented the next day.
In the letter, DTCA Executive Director Sabiha Parveen said the decision was taken in view of the meeting held on banning ticket counters of inter-district buses and parking buses outside terminals in the Dhaka metropolitan.
According to sources, the bus route rationalisation committee meeting held in December last year decided to stop bus parking outside the terminal in Dhaka from April this year. As that decision was not implemented, the meeting held on 1 May took a fresh decision regarding Sylhet and Cumilla-bound buses.
Secretary General of Bangladesh Road Transport Owners Association Khandkar Enayet Ullah told TBS that the decision to install bus counters inside terminals and not to park buses on roads is positive. Transport owners and workers will certainly want to accept this decision.
However, he claimed that there are some limitations and said that the capacity of each terminal in Dhaka is much less than that of buses. In this situation, the infrastructure needs to be developed before proceeding with the decision.