<i>Will fresh drive to drive out old buses succeed?</i>

Photo: STAR

The ongoing drive of Dhaka Metropolitan Police (DMP) to keep buses older than 20 years away from the streets of Dhaka is unlikely to yield desired result, speculate owners and experts in the sector.
This recent drive, just like similar drives in the past, will not be able to deter bus owners from plying the expired buses on the city streets unless the government immediately hits the brake on forgery in the registration process and bribery at various agencies -- customs department, port authorities, BRTA (Bangladesh Road Transport Authority) and law enforcement agencies, they added.
Abul Kalam, who owns several buses and has years of experience in the transport sector, said, "According to my experience, this sort of drives would make the owners withdraw the expired buses from city roads temporarily, but eventually, the old buses will get back on the streets with new paint jobs."
Old buses were withdrawn from the roads during previous raids, but those made it back onto the roads as the owners made under-the-table dealings with authorities concerned, Kalam alleged.
A June 2005 study conducted by BRTA on the age of buses operational in the city shows that 87 percent of the buses running in the city were more than 20 years old. Out of 4,042 registered buses, 3,502 were either older than 20 years or approaching the 20-year service threshold.
During the survey period, only 890 buses and minibuses were 10 to 15 years old.
Most buses now running in the capital have already crossed the 20-year service threshold fixed by the government, said a high official of BRTA requesting anonymity.
These buses are still operational in the city with false dates of manufacture on their registration documents. The documents with false dates were furnished before the computerised data preservation system was introduced at BRTA, he added.
Furthermore, dishonest employees of BRTA registered the buses with false dates on the computerised data preservation system as the registration process was plagued with irregularities, said the official adding that bus importers also tamper with manufacture dates engraved on the engine and chassis of the bus before or after it enters the port premises.
However, Abu Bakar Muhammad Shahjahan, chairman of BRTA, said tampering with manufacture dates on the computerised data base system is quite impossible.
When asked how the BRTA intended to handle the shortage of buses once large numbers of expired buses are taken out of the city streets, he said, "We want the old buses replaced and there are interested investors who would like to invest in the sector."
Mashrur Ahmed, a customs official, said age-tampering of buses is impossible if the procedure is followed strictly by agencies concerned.
Since various agencies are involved in the process, even if a vehicle declaring false date of manufacture slips through customs check, it should not pass through the BRTA during registration process, Mashrur added. "Negligence of duties is, however, a different issue. And I think it does not exist at ports these days."
Saidur Rahman, deputy police commissioner at traffic wing of DMP, said that during the ongoing drive against expired buses, the DMP is mainly checking registration documents and route permits of buses.
Taking advantage of infrequent drives, most expired buses enter the city from the outskirts or adjacent districts, violating their route permits. So, these buses can be detected by checking their route permits, Rahman explained.
He, however, admitted that the DMP traffic wing is not equipped to detect registration documents with fake manufacture dates.