Housing ministry sets Sunday deadline for April–March fiscal year plans

Dhaka's company-based bus service is due to begin on 1 November on six routes, with a proposed fleet of 816 buses, most of them existing vehicles that owners have been told to repair and repaint rather than replace.

The first phase covers five non-air-conditioned routes and one air-conditioned route. They connect Gazipur with Dhakeshwari Temple, Gabtoli with Demra, Duaripara with Sadarghat, Ghatarchar with Demra, Ghatarchar with Kanchpur, and Mirpur-12 with Mawa. The air-conditioned service will run from Tongi Airport through the expressway and Farmgate to Azimpur and Dhakeshwari Temple.

The Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority (DTCA) is grouping the companies that already operate on each corridor into a single operator per route. The aim is to end the race for passengers between buses, fix boarding points and ticketing, and eventually replace the city's fragmented network.

The scale of the problem is large. According to the DTCA, about 7,500 buses run on only 98 of Dhaka's 418 approved routes, operated by 66 companies. Overlapping routes and competition for passengers contribute to congestion and crashes. The plan is to consolidate the 98 operating routes into 32, with about 70 per cent following existing alignments, so some passengers will have to change buses to reach their destination.

The government wants franchises for all 32 routes finalised within two months and the whole programme completed within six months. Owners have two months to repair and repaint their vehicles, and buses found unfit are to be kept off the road. The new system is meant to bring designated stops, counter-based and electronic ticketing and GPS tracking, and the authorities are also considering monthly salaries for drivers and helpers instead of commission-based pay.

That last idea matters because competition for daily takings is widely blamed for aggressive driving. Kadir Molla, a driver on the Sadarghat route, told Dhaka Tribune that a single-operator arrangement could reduce the pressure. "If only one company's buses operate on this route, we will no longer have to compete with other buses for passengers," he said.

The weak points are ticketing and stops. DTCA sources told Dhaka Tribune that owners on all but one of the 32 proposed routes have not agreed to electronic ticketing, and an official acknowledged that even setting up ticket counters had proved difficult. A 2024 inspection found that 165 of about 400 designated stops across eight pilot routes had not been built, and only 80 had fully working ticket facilities. Without them, passengers went back to paying on the bus.

The plan follows a meeting on 8 October chaired by Prime Minister Tarique Rahman, where agencies were told to speed up route rationalisation. But similar promises have been made before. A version appeared in the 2004 Strategic Transport Plan, former Dhaka North mayor Annisul Huq revived it in 2015, a Ghatarchar-Kanchpur pilot began in December 2021 and did not expand, and an attempt on the Gabtoli-Chashara route in 2025 also fell short. The BRTC's Pink Bus service for women, launched in August with repainted buses, ran into operational problems within two months.

Dhrubo Alam, deputy transport planner at the DTCA, said earlier attempts failed partly because the authorities imposed decisions without involving bus owners. He said this time the agency intends to work with operators and to run joint drives against buses without valid fitness certificates or route permits.

Passenger representatives are less hopeful. Mozammel Haque Chowdhury, secretary general of the Bangladesh Passenger Welfare Association, questioned whether reorganising operators and repainting old buses would substantially improve services, and said the government should have brought in new vehicles and consulted passengers during planning. Urban planner Adil Mohammad Khan said the initiative could work only if unauthorised buses were stopped from competing with the designated operators, and warned that vehicle quality could not be ignored in Dhaka's heat.

Several details remain unclear before the launch. The authorities have not said how many buses will actually run on 1 November, what the fares will be, or how existing permit holders who are left out will be treated. It is also uncertain whether ticket counters and designated stops will be ready on the six routes in time.

The DTCA separately plans smaller buses on 25 circular routes linking to the metro rail network in about two months, and is working with BRTC on electric bus routes. For the first phase, however, most commuters will board the same vehicles they know, with new paint and a new company name. Whether the service feels different will depend on the ticketing, stops and enforcement that previous attempts could not deliver.

Barrister Rumeen Farhana, the independent MP for Brahmanbaria-2, went to Sarail police station on Thursday night with a crowd of supporters and confronted the officer-in-charge in his room, in an exchange that was filmed and spread quickly on Facebook.

The row began over security. Rumeen said she had asked for personal protection while visiting Durga Puja mandaps in Sarail but was given none, although she had been guarded in Bijoynagar and Ashuganj, the other two parts of her constituency. She arrived at the station at about 8pm and stayed in the OC's room until about 9pm.

In the recordings, she tells OC Monzur Kader Bhuiyan that he was 'a big Awami League man' and that she knew his history. She accuses him of taking money from sand dredging and brickfields, of extracting money from people facing cases, and of refusing to answer her phone calls.

A man who came with her accused the OC of taking Tk 30,000 to release a suspect in a case. Monzur denied it and said the man had been coached by the MP.

The OC told reporters that Rumeen arrived with 100 to 150 people and that several hundred crowded into his office, creating what he called a mob. He denied every corruption allegation. On the brickfield claim, he said the brickfields in the haor are under water. He also said an MP seeking a personal gunman should apply to the superintendent of police, and that keeping a police team with her that night was not possible.

Monzur further accused Rumeen of shielding Awami League activists from arrest and said he had a list. She replied that a former Union Parishad chairman he named had been expelled by the party.

Outside the station, supporters chanted against the OC. The OC said he told his officers to record the conversation. The district police chief, Mu. Jalal Uddin Fahim, did not answer repeated calls from reporters, and there was no public statement from police headquarters.

Rumeen, a lawyer, won Brahmanbaria-2 in the February election as an independent after leaving the BNP. The constituency covers Sarail, Ashuganj and part of Bijoynagar. The dispute has left her supporters and the local police trading accusations, with no independent account yet of what was said inside the room.