Ariful Haq travels every day from Kalyanpur in Dhaka to his office in Purana Paltan. He runs a travel agency. Ariful Haq told Prothom Alo that it is impossible to board the buses. If he takes Uber, the fare is around 400 taka. If there were air-conditioned buses then the journey would have been comfortable. But there is no AC bus on the route he travels.
Like him, many people would have traveled in AC buses when they were available. But now AC buses can be counted on fingers in Dhaka, a city with a population of about 1.5 crores. Non-AC buses are also in poor condition – dilapidated, discolored, doors, windows and lights are out of order.
During the tenure of the interim government, approval was given to introduce 690 new AC buses, but the companies that received the approval failed to bring diesel-powered AC buses into service even after six months. The government is now focusing on electric buses.
Sources in the road transport ministry said the new government plans to modernize the process of approving buses, types of buses and their management. The plan to introduce electric buses stems from that initiative.