Owners check licences, papers at bus terminals

Transport owners are checking driving licenses and registration certificate of the vehicles at bus terminals before allowing them to operate.

This is going on at 12 spots in Dhaka city since and started from this morning, said Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association President Abul Kalam.

Representatives of owners and workers were checking six documents – licence, blue book, tax token, fitness clearance, route permit and insurance, said Tariqul Islam, office secretary of Mohakhali Bus Terminal Owners’ Association.

At Mohakhali Bus Terminal, around 300 vehicles were checked since this morning and 40 were found to have been operating with invalid papers, said Tariqul.

Meanwhile, Abul Kalam claimed that 98 per cent papers of the buses at Mohakhali Bus Terminal are okay but that the problem lied with drivers’ licence.

He added, almost 70 per cent of the drivers at Mohakhali hold either light or medium vehicle licence which is not eligible for driving buses. “They need licences to drive heavy vehicles.”

This is causing a problem and it will be informed to the authorities concerned, said Kalam.

Enayet Ullah, general secretary of Dhaka Road Transport Owners Association yesterday said representatives of the owners and workers would check documents of buses at Mohakhali and Saidabad bus terminals from today and no vehicles would be allowed on streets without valid documents.