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First rest areas for truckers almost ready
FROM PAGE 12
A medium-sized truck (two-axle truck, tanker, and lorry) would have to pay Tk 75 for parking for five hours and Tk 15 for every additional hour, according to the guideline.
If a driver wants to rest there, he or she has to spend Tk 150 for five hours and Tk 25 for every additional hour, it said.
The rest areaswould have toilets, restaurants and truck maintenance workshops among other facilities.
WHY REST AREAS?
On June 25, 2018, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina at a cabinet meeting gave several directives to reduce road crashes, including building rest areas for drivers at regular intervals on highways.
Driving vehicles for a long time without any rest is considered one of the major reasons behind the accidents.
Following her directives, the Roads and Highways Department (RHD) in 2019 took a project to build four rest areas for trucks at a cost of Tk 226.22 crore.
The four rest areas would be built at Nimshar in Cumilla on Dhaka-Chattogram highway, Pachila in Sirajganj on Dhaka-Rangpur highway, Jagadishpur in Habiganj on Dhaka-Sylhet highway, and Laxmikandar in Magura on Dhaka-Khulna highway.
The project was supposed to be completed within June 2021, but the work is running behind schedule mainly due to a delay in land acquisition, RHD sources said. The fresh deadline is June 2023.
Two of the four rest areas -- Nimshar in Cumilla and Pachila in Sirajganj -- are almost ready, Project Director Abdullah Al Mamun told The Daily Star yesterday.
Mamun, also the additional chief engineer (technical service wing) of the RHD, said they already floated a tender for hiring service providers.
“We hoped that the two rest areas would be operational within this year.”
He expected that the remaining two would be functional in June next year.
However, RHD sources said there is a space issue in the rest areas. In a rest area, 70 vehicles can be parked, but the rest area has room for only for 24 drivers, they said.
So, the project authorities recently sent a revised proposal to the Road Transport and Highways Division to build a new four-storey building and upgrade the two-storey building to a four-storey one to improve facilities, they said.
If the proposal is approved, the project cost would be around Tk 255 crore, they added.
SERVICE CHARGES
The division approved the guideline for operation and maintenance of the rest areas after the finance ministry gave the go-ahead.
Signed by Fahmida Hoque Khan, deputy secretary of the division, the guideline mentions everything needed for the operation and maintenance of the first such initiative in the country.
According to the guideline, heavy goods vehicles (HGVs), with prime mover and three-axle trailers, four-axle trucks, tankers and lorries, would have to pay Tk 150 for parking for five hours and Tk 30 for every additional hour.
For HGVs, with prime mover and two-axle trailers, three-axle trucks, tankers and lorries, drivers would have to spend Tk 100 for parking for five hours and Tk 20 for every additional hour.
A light vehicle, two-axle trucks with four wheels, would cost Tk 50 to park for five hours and Tk 10 for every additional hour.
A driver or his associate would have to pay Tk 5 for using the toilet and Tk 10 for using bathrooms.
However, a top RHD official said the main challenge of the initiative is to motivate drivers to use the facilities as they are accustomed to parking their vehicles beside roads without paying any money.
“Even transport leaders requested us to provide the service free of cost initially, but it’s not possible because apart from the construction cost, we have operational cost too,” he said, wishing not to be named.
Hossain Ahmed Majumder, acting secretary of Bangladesh Truck Covered-van Owners’ Association, said they opposed the “high charge”.
Drivers would not avail the service unless the charges are kept at an “affordable level,” he told this correspondent yesterday.

6 men rape
FROM PAGE 12
The men then gagged her with a strip of cloth and raped her, she said, adding that she recognised three of the men named Bablu, Taleb and Aslam who are from her village.
She added that she lost consciousness at one point.
Her mother said she was going to the town to see her father.
Contacted, Kamal Hossain, officer-in-charge of Thakurgaon Police Station, said the victim was asked to file a case with Baliadangi Police Station.
However, Khairul Anam, officer-in-charge of Baliadangi Police Station, said he was yet to formally receive any complaint.