Toll protest continues to make public suffer
Transport workers' blockade on the first Buriganga Bridge protesting a steep rise in toll rates and demanding an immediate revision of the new charges continued for the third consecutive day yesterday.
As a result, the first China-Bangladesh Friendship Bridge that connects Keraniganj with the capital across the Buriganga River has remained off limits to hundreds of Dhaka bound vehicles from south-western districts causing public sufferings and adding to traffic congestion in the city.
The traffic of the first bridge is now diverted to the toll-free Babubazar second Buriganga Bridge.
“The blockade is going on and the protestors held rallies on both Hasnabad and Postogola ends of the bridge today,” said Sheikh Md Abdur Razzaq, officer-in-charge of Shyampur Police Station.
Hundreds of three-wheel auto-rickshaw drivers, truck and lorry workers, and users and operators of local non-motorised bicycles, rickshaws, and vans continued the blockade.
As usual, the local commuters were the worst sufferers, as they had to cross the
bridge on foot.
MAN Siddique, secretary to the road transport and bridges ministry, said on Saturday that the new toll rates might be reviewed for the bridge if local lawmaker Nasrul Hamid Bipu wrote to the communications ministry for toll exemption considering the nature of the traffic.
The ministry then would place the proposal to the finance ministry for the exemption, he added.
According to the new chart, long trailers have to pay Tk 750, heavy trucks Tk 280, medium trucks Tk 275, big buses Tk 75, and mini-trucks Tk 170. Previously, all these vehicles would pay Tk 30.
Non-motorised bicycles, rickshaws, vans and pushcarts that used to ply free also came under the toll regime, and now have to pay Tk 10 each.
The new toll was raised from Tk 20 to Tk 25 for minibus and from Tk 20 to Tk 75 for microbus.
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