Tangail transport workers suffering

Several thousand transport workers and their families in Tangail have been passing days in hardship since bus services were suspended on March 26.

Movement of non-emergency vehicles were suspended on that day as part of the country's ongoing efforts to contain the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The transport workers, including drivers and their assistants, employed by bus operators, usually do not get any fixed salary. Instead, they are paid a cut of earnings from total trips a bus makes each day. There are nearly 1,000 buses under different owners and operators in Tangail.

No one, not even the owners' association or the workers' union, came forward to help them out in this time of distress, said transport workers.

Many of them, looking dejected, were seen sitting around in Tangail New Bus Terminal complex last week when several hundred buses were found parked in the terminal area. The workers said they were hoping that the services would resume soon.

Bus driver Minhaz Uddin, from Shibpur of Sadar upazila, said although many transport workers like him were struggling to survive, they considered it disgraceful to accept charity.

"While many have borrowed money from others, we are passing days in uncertainty as we don't know when the bus services will resume and bring back normalcy in our lives," he said.

Driver's assistant Suhel Miah, from Ghatail upazila, said they usually live from hand to mouth. But the suspension on vehicular movement has made their lives miserable. "I've got mouths to feed, but I am yet to get any sort of assistance from anyone."

Asked what the workers' union or the owners' association were doing in the situation, Babu Chittaranjan Das, general secretary of Tangail district bus-minibus workers' union, said the union leaders held a meeting with the owners' association on April 2 to discuss the issue.

But the meeting ended without any consensus, he added.  

Contacted, Tangail Deputy Commissioner Md Shahidul Islam said the government would do everything necessary to assist the workers under the circumstances and with that objective, he already asked several leaders of the transport workers' union to hand over him a list of workers who are the worst affected for being out of work. 

Dilip Kumar Das, office secretary of the union, said a list of 2,000 transport workers had been sent to the DC.

Meanwhile, the district transport workers' union decided to disburse money from their welfare fund to buy relief materials and distribute those to 6,000 workers in the district, said Golam Mawla, executive president of the union.

He said they gave 1,500 packets of relief materials -- each containing 10kg rice, 2kg potato, 1kg lentil, and 1 litre edible oil -- to the workers at the Tangail New Bus Terminal.