Southern routes’ bus charging extra fare, passengers allege

Buses heading towards southern districts from Sayedabad bus terminal are allegedly charging extra fare from the Eid home-goers.

Besides, buses have to wait for hours to leave the bus terminal due to traffic congestion in the Sayedabad bus terminal area.

A visit to Sayedabad bus terminal on Saturday afternoon revealed this picture.

The passengers allege that they are paying extra fare to go home as they don’t find any alternative. The transport workers, on the other hand, reasoned that they are charging extra fare since they will have to return with empty seats to Dhaka.

The crisis of tickets was mainly in the buses of southern districts while tickets were available in eastern districts.

The fare of Dhaka-Barishal ticket in non-AC buses is Tk 500 in normal time but a counter was selling each ticket at Tk 800 at around 1:30pm. A person named Md Khairul Bashar bought two tickets at Tk 1600.

Khairul, who works at a government organisation, said, “I searched (ticket) in different places, to no avail. Finally, I got the tickets here. Although they are charging extra fare, I have no other options. So I bought a ticket for Tk 800. This ticket is normally sold at Tk 500.”

A person identifying himself as Md Mizan told Prothom Alo, “We’re charging extra fare since the bus will return to Dhaka with empty seats.”

Counter master of Ekushey Paribahan, a bus of Southern route, also came up with the same reason as for extra fare. This bus was also charging Tk 800 for the Dhaka-Barisal route.

However, the buses that sell tickets online are not charging extra fare. But most of the buses did not sell tickets online and are charging exorbitant fares.

Not only are the buses on the southern routes, other buses too allegedly charge extra fare.

Swapan Mia came to Sayedabad from the city’s Kamrangirchar to go to Brahmanbaria. He bought seven tickets for his family members from Tisha Paribahan at Tk 3500.

“We regularly commute to Brahmanbaria with this bus. The regular fare is Tk 300 but I had to pay Tk 500 per ticket this time around. I had to pay extra Tk 1,400 for seven tickets,” Swapan Mia alleged.

Passengers have alleged that they have been suffering from acute traffic congestion in the Sayedabad bus terminal area since morning.

Nesar Uddin, who boarded on a Cumilla-bound bus of Tisha Paribahan, said he has been waiting at the bus terminal area for three long hours.

Emran Hossain, driver of that bus, told Prothom Alo, “I started taking passengers at 10 in the morning. Five hours have passed since then, but I could not even leave the bus terminal area.”

Many commuters also suffer as buses wait for long to pick up passengers.
A passenger of Ekota Motors bus bound for Chattogram and Cox's Bazar said that he has been sitting in the bus for an hour.

Most of the buses are picking up passengers as long as they wait in Sayedabad.