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THE road and water transport organisations have decided to increase transport fares. However, the leaders of the transport bodies, for example, Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Samity (Bangladesh Road Transport Association) and Bangladesh Inland Waterways Association, have, meanwhile, decided to go for a hike in bus and passenger launch fares. This hike, according to such bodies, is needed for the reason that what they already charge from the passengers is below the rates fixed by the government authorities concerned. Again, the rise in the prices of diesel and kerosene has necessitated the increase in transport fares. The government, it may be recalled, increased the price of diesel and kerosene last year to stay even with the international prices of these two basic fuels.
In this context, the water and road transport operators have already decided what would be the new rates of their imminent hike in bus and launch fares per kilometre of journey. So, all concerned, whether in the government or in the transport sector, have a strong argument in favour of their decision to bump up the value of the service they render to the people in general. In this case, it is the fares the passengers of buses and launches will have to pay to the service-providers. But what is the reason that the common consumers of those services have in support of paying more from their pockets in which case their monthly earning has no sign of going up in the near feature? So, it is again the common consumers who will have to pay through their nose to adjust their monthly budgets in the face of this yet another contingency in their day to lives.
Who are to think on behalf of the common consumers who constitute the large majority of the people falling in the low income bracket of the economy in this particular case? Regrettably, there is no satisfactory answer to the question. The country and its people are in a quandary because they are poor. For the business in the private sector has to be allowed to flourish in order that the economy as a whole may prosper. The line of reasoning is indisputable. But still that is not reason enough to convince the low income people as to why they will have to bear the entire burden of this economic reality.
The reality of the economy and all the reasoning in its favour aside, the fact remains that, the people have already got used to such hikes in transport fares. Even if the present case of fare raise can be justified because the cost of fuel has been increased, can the transport operators then give good reason for all the past hikes in bus and launch fares they have brought to bear on the poor travellers? Against this backdrop, the question of rational increase in the transport fares comes here naturally. Unfortunately, neither the government nor the bargaining agents in the various sectors of the industry have any proper policy to rationalise the costs the members of the public have always to bear whenever there is any change in the price structure of the goods and services in the economy.
Yet again, it cannot also be expected of the government, nor would it be judicious to suggest so, that it should subsidise the sector so that the public in general could be protected without hampering business in general. But since the government is not a businessman and as it does not need to make profit for the services it provides, it can at least press more government-owned transport, especially for passenger travel, into service and run those on a totally non-profit basis. At the same time, appropriate authorities of the government should also evaluate the past hikes in the transport fares by the private operators, if only to find ways to rationalise the present regime of service charges in this sector in order that those may be maintained within a tolerable limit.
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