Seating service in buses

BUS is the most used mode of public transport in Bangladesh. With expanding growth, cities are also under increasing pressure of public transportation and as it is the cheapest, bus is the most preferred one by the city dwellers. Travelling by bus is convenient for students also because of the affordable fares and accessibility. 
But the new system of "Seating Service" or "Gate-lock service" is bringing great woes for the students, particularly the female ones. The government took actions against those bus companies who were charging high fares by calling their services "seating service". The Bus Owners Association said they would stop this by April 15 and they did it to some extent. But soon that created an artificial crisis and the transport authority warned that the route permits issued by them will be taken back as it was given to them for providing service to the public. But after a few days of the crisis the Bus Owners' Association reintroduced the seating service in Dhaka. The most astonishing part of the episode is that some of the bus owners started to take higher fare than before, which caused further problem for the people.
But there is an area of new hopes as Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said, 4,000 more new modern buses would be put into service on various routes in the city and will be strictly monitored by the Transport Authority to ensure public service.
Taskir ur Rahman
East West University
Aftabnagar, Rampura, Dhaka.
[email protected]