Should CNG autorickshaws come under a few companies?

Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) finally backed down and cancelled its 10 February order that asked police to file cases against autorickshaw drivers charging a fare beyond meter reading.

BRTA reversed the decision in the face of protests staged by autorickshaw drivers who blocked several roads over the past few days, bringing city traffic to a standstill. The drivers have suspended their demonstrations and lifted the blockades after the withdrawal of the decision to enforce meter fare. 

Many have argued that BRTA shouldn't have made such a decision without revising the fare that was fixed 10 years back in 2015. Experts, on the other hand, have stressed that the authorities have to address the root cause of the problem, which is not the meter fare or the high daily deposit paid to the autorickshaw owners by the drivers.

They argued that micro-managing thousands of individual drivers and owners is not practical. Rather, they need to be brought under a couple of companies. Running BRTA through technical experts instead of bureaucrats was also underlined.

Meter fare never enforced

Currently, the government-set minimum fare for autorickshaws is Tk40 for the first two kilometres, and after that, the fare is Tk14 per kilometer plus the waiting charge. In reality, passengers have to pay at least Tk150 to travel a minimum distance.

Drivers have been operating outside the meter from the very beginning, in violation of the law. In the early days, they used to demand Tk20 more than the meter fare. Later, they totally ignored meter fare and asked whatever they deemed fit.

BRTA with the help of the police has struggled for many years to enforce the meter usage, but was never successful. CNG drivers charge about two to three times the fare fixed by the government, and the passengers have conceded the reality. Some of the CNG autorickshaws nowadays do not even have the meter.

Autorickshaw drivers have been saying that it is not possible to live in Dhaka with a family with the meter fare.

"Is it possible to live in Dhaka without Tk60 thousand a month?" Abdul Majed, a CNG autorickshaw driver recently said, who lives in Agargaon's Sixty Feet Road area. He said he earned Tk2,800 on that particular day, but he usually earns Tk2,000 daily, excluding the deposit paid to the owner.

This is about five times the minimum wage of an RMG worker, and three times what an experienced garment worker or an entry-level journalist earns.

Although these autorickshaws do not operate based on meter reading, the drivers and owners have been demanding a fare hike. Last year, a BRTA sub-committee recommended doubling the minimum fare to Tk80, increasing the per-kilometre fare to Tk25, and raising the daily deposit by Tk300.

Experts say this is not going to resolve the crisis and bring order to the chaotic transport scene.

'BRTA management is the root of the problem'

Dr Md Shamsul Hoque, transport sector expert and a professor at Accident Research Institute (ARI) in Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said the absence of technical expertise in BRTA is the root cause behind the agency's inability to bring order to the transport system.

"BRTA does not know the science and technology that, when applied during the registration process, makes the management autonomous," he said.

"Police fines the drivers, even dumps the autorickshaws sometimes in order to enforce meter fare. But we still don't find the impact on the road. The thing is, monitoring 20 thousand CNG autorickshaw driver is not practical," the professor explained.

Professor Shamsul Hoque said that the CNG autorickshaws need to be operated under two to three companies. This way, regulating authorities can reach out to the owner company and fine them if needed in case of noncompliance. 

Under this arrangement, the company will be responsible for the management of thousands of autoricksaw drivers and make the management easy for the regulatory authority. The authority would then be able to take drastic measures like cancelling or threatening to cancel the route permit of a company owning thousands of autorickshaws and straighten them.

The expert said he does not blame the autorickshaw drivers for noncompliance and the protests; rather, those who based the system on thousands of owners are responsible for the indiscipline and chaos.

"The root cause of all this chaos in the transport sector is the leadership of BRTA. If you look at Dubai Road Transport Authority, for example, there are a lot of technical professionals in the management. Bureaucrats cannot do the work of technical experts, which is the case here in BRTA," Dr Hoque said.

If BRTA knew the proper management, they would not try to enforce the meter fare this way and fail spectacularly, he added. 

'Bringing a structural reform to the regulatory authority is a must. Give the responsibility to the people with the right technical knowledge," the professor said.

"We are heading to a point of no return," he concluded.

Sketch: TBS