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Fare hikes are primarily attributed to inflation, extortion, employee Eid bonuses, and owners’ profit motives.

Besides, the absence of passenger representatives in monitoring teams has made oversight ineffective.

Jatri Kalyan Samity also presented figures for how much would be extorted from passengers using each mode of transportation, with long-distance buses and minibuses taking Tk 90 crore extra from 30 lakh passengers and city buses taking Tk 12 crore from 40 lakh trips.

The Samity emphasised that the fare hikes are exacerbating the cost of living, encouraging corruption, and increasing road accidents.

To curb these issues, it urged authorities to introduce digital fare collection, ban cash transactions, use CCTV for fare monitoring, and improve transport governance.

Present at the press conference were newly elected Chairman Mohammad Zakaria, former election commission secretary Syed Ahmad, former Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority executive director Mahmudul Hasan Russell, and Mohammad Alauddin Masud.