Army Welfare Trust starts bus service

The Army Welfare Trust has started up a new bus service in the city, from Mirpur to Gulshan-Natun Bazar. The service, under Trust Transport Service, has started initially with five buses. Trust already runs a taxicab service and the bus service was introduced last week.

Last Monday afternoon at around 4:00am, two large yellow and white buses stood at Mirpur 10. The buses are 44-seaters with red and green velvet upholstery. The bus helper was calling out to passengers, "direct Kochukhet, Kakoli." The first bus started off in about 25 minutes with 20 passengers aboard.

Due to the general strike, the buses travelled up till Kakoli that day. The route of these buses is Mirpur 14-Kochukhet-Sainik Club-Kakoli-Natun Bazar. The minimum fare is 13 taka, anywhere between Mirpur 10 to Kakoli bus stand. From Kakoli to Gulshan-2 is 10 taka. The entire route fare is 23 taka. The government has fixed the minimum bus fare at seven taka and other buses from Mirpur 10 to Gulshan-2 take 16 taka.

Mohammed Akhter Ali is the Trust transport timekeeper at Mirpur 10 who keeps a record of the schedules. He tells Prothom Alo that there are still not so many passengers on these buses as the people are not aware of the route. And as there are not many buses, they leave after every 20 minutes. Within the next month 30 buses of this service will be running.

A regular passenger of this route Mohammed Ibrahim says, "It takes longer to go to Gulshan via Mohakhali and you have to change the bus at least twice. If this bus service is regular, the passengers will save both time and money."

Dhaka Metropolitan Regional Transport Committee (Metro RTC) sources say that Trust Transport Services has the permission for 70 air-conditioned (AC) or non-AC buses for Mirpur, Mirpur DOHS and Mirpur Cantonment.

Metro RTC gives permission for buses in Dhaka. It is headed by the Dhaka Metropolitan Police Commissioner. The committee also comprises officials of BRTA, the traffic police, the city corporation and other government institutions as well representatives of the transport owners and workers association.