& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

Drivers Lack Money to Buy 5000 Cng-run Autorickshaws

Fear of falling into owners1 clutches

Shahnaz Parveen
The process to add 5000 more CNG run auto rickshaws to the current fleet in the city finally began ignoring all hiccups and previous disagreements.
Sources at Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) told Star City that since publication of advertisement on July 20, around 1400 applications were sold. The deadline to buy and submit the application form is August 31.
According to the rule, only drivers with valid driving licences are allowed to apply for these yellow colour autorickshaws. Allotment will be held through lottery if the number of submitted applications exceeds 5000.
Drivers however say, the new allotment will neither benefit them nor the commuters in case the drivers do not get bank
loans without which they will hardly be able to purchase the vehicles.
Md Golam Faruq, General Secretary, Dhaka District Autorickshaw Auto-tempo Transport Workers Union said, a CNG autorickshaw now costs around Tk 2,80,000 in the market. Registration fee is Tk 7000 and installation fee for manual metre is also around Tk 7000. Cost of installation increases if the metre is digital.
Drivers will have to pur- . chase the vehicles from private importer. Currently only Uttara Motors is the sole distributor of Bajaj autorickshaw in the country. Drivers also fear that the price may increase further like in the previous cases.
"There is much enthusiasm among the drivers but where will they get such a huge amount of money? We don't
have enough property to mortgage to the bank”, he said.
“It would have been easier if the government arranged the bank loans. We have urged the government to be our guarantor so that we can obtain loans easily. But there is no response yet from the authorities”, he added.
Faruq also feared a possibility of backdoor dealings between mahajons (owners) and drivers.
"Owners will approach drivers with money to buy the vehicles. The driver will be owner only in papers while in reality the Mahajons will control the whole thing. It will also create a new breed of middlemen to do brisk business," Faruq pointed out.
Owners had earlier opposed the decision to register vehicles only against driving licence. They termed it unjust and a
violation of their agreement with the ministry and BRTA in 2002.
, ATM Nazmul Hasan, General Secretary, Dhaka City CNG Autorickshaw Owners Association said, "Many owners were deprived when the government in 2001 phased out 31,500 two-stroke three-wheelers and introduced environment-friendly four-stroke ones"
"The government many times promised that the deprived owners would be compensated and the fresh lot of CNG autorickshaws would be allotted to those deprived owners," he added.
Hasan also raised the issue of ability of the drivers, “Where would the drivers get so much money to invest?"
Humayun Rashid Khalifa, director (Engineering), BRTA however told Star City that the
first phase of registration process started smoothly.
"The idea was to bring down the chaos in the sector. If the drivers go for any secret understanding with the owners then we are undone. However we did not receive any complaints from them so far. The first phase of the project began smoothly”, he said.
The communications ministry on November 8 last year approved the plan to add 5000 more autorickshaw, the most popular mode of transporta tion in the city hoping that the new addition will bring down the existing chaos in the CNG autorickshaw sector and reduce public sufferings in the capital.
The number of CNG-run auto rickshaws in Dhaka city will rise to around 18,000 with the latest addition to the existing fleet of 13,000