The adviser to the National Committee to Protect Shipping, Road and Rail Sector, M Inamul Haque addresses a press conference in Dhaka on Monday. — New Age photo

The government should develop a people-friendly transport system through strengthening the Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation and taking effective steps against corruption and road accidents, a press conference was told in Dhaka on Monday.
The conference was organised by the National Committee to Protect Shipping, Road and Rail Sectors in Mani Singh-Farhad Memorial Trust Building in the capital.
Speakers at the conference protested against the government’s grant of lease of BRTC buses to private companies.
They said that the lease system eventually increases transport fare and encourage extortion.
The government imported 275 buses from China, 255 buses from South Korea which are added to the BRTC fleet, but most of the buses had already been leased, they also said.
The committee chairman, Tushar Rehman, adviser M Enamul Huq and convener Ashish Kumar Dey, among others, spoke on the occasion.
M Enamul Huq said the people had been facing serious troubles for years due to excessive bus fair and reckless extortion in transport sector and such misdeeds should be stopped as soon as possible.
The committee put forth 10-point demand that includes to cancel the lease of all BRTC buses, increase the number of buses in all routes to reduce traffic congestion, employ efficient drivers in order to reinforce the BRTC and BRTA, establish investigation commission immediately for preventing the corruption inside BRTA, BRTC and Roads and Highways department, contain reckless extortion in transport system, maintain several mobile courts to reduce excessive bus fair, identify fake license holder drivers and force drivers to maintain traffic rules and regulation.