Dhaka South City Corporation mayor Sheikh Fazle Noor Taposh on Tuesday said that the Committee for Bus Route Rationalisation members proposed bringing 2,500 bus owners under 22 companies to operate buses on 42 routes.
Taposh, also the committee head, said that they also proposed not to allow any inter-district bus in Dhaka and relocate terminals at city peripheries.
The DSCC mayor said this at the 13th meeting of the committee held at Nagar Bhaban in Dhaka.
Dhaka North City Corporation mayor Atiqul Islam joined the meeting virtually where bus owners, transport experts and officials, among others, were present.
‘I hope for a visible progress by 2021,’ mayor Taposh said.
Currently, buses ply on at least 291 routes competing without discipline.
The next meeting of the committee was scheduled on December 6.
The bus route franchise plan was initiated back in 1997 under Dhaka Urban Transport Project. In 2015, the late DNCC mayor Annisul Huq tried to set strategies to implement the plan.
The proposed initiative to bring all private buses under six companies and ensure quality services on 22 major routes had remained stalled since the mayor’s death on November 30, 2017.
Dhaka Metropolitan Police commissioner Mohammad Shafiqul Islam, Bangladesh Road Transport Authority chairman Nur Mohammad Majumder, Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation chairman Ehsan Elahi, Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkho chairman Mohammad Saeed Nur Alam, the committee member secretary and DTCA executive director Khandaker Rakibur Rahman, public transport expert SM Saleh Uddin and Bangladesh Road Transport Owners Association general secretary Khandaker Enayet Ullah were present, among others, at the meeting.
