Tangail transport workers in tatters

Road transport workers in Tangail are struggling to eke out a living while the owners of buses and trucks are counting huge losses as the vehicles stay off the road amid the ongoing BNP-led alliance blockade.

The district has an estimated 20,000 transport workers and owners whose income has either stopped or gone down significantly after the opposition programme kicked off on January 6, said sources at the Bangladesh Road Transport Workers' Federation.

“Transport workers are the most common victim of the hartal and blockade violence. At least 56 transport workers were burnt to death during the last parliamentary elections,” said Mir Lutfar Rahman Lalju, general secretary of the federation's Tangail unit.

Asgar Ali, driver of a Dhaka-Tangail route bus, said: “I have been borrowing money to run my family for the last few days as I am paid on the basis of daily trips.”

Rashedur Rahman Tabib, secretary of the Tangail District Bus Owners' Association, said the blockade was being enforced at a time when the transport owners were trying to recover the losses caused by the political unrest during the national election in 2014.

Sadiqul Haque Swadhin, who took a bank loan to buy three buses, said he was not operating the vehicles fearing vandalism and arson attacks on those.

“I have not been earning anything for the last 15 days. But I will have to pay the loan instalments,” he told The Daily Star on Tuesday.

According to the bus owners association, the owners of 1100 buses in Tangail incur a daily loss of Tk 1.5 crore, thanks to the blockade.