Waterbus service sinks after start
Lack of right planning, mismanagement blamed
These waterbuses operate between Sadarghat and Gabtoli incurring a loss of Tk 20,000 a day. Poor planning, mismanagement and improper integration with other facilities has left the service on the brink of collapse. The photo was taken from Sadarghat recently
Sixteen months after its launching, the waterbus service in the rivers Buriganga and Turag is on the verge of collapse due to mismanagement and lack of proper planning.
Moreover, introduction of wrong types of vessels for the existing landing facilities along their route also caused a decline in the number of passengers. The vessels can only have three stoppages instead of six as the existing pontoons or landing facilities are too high for those.
Only two vessels now operate twice a day on the route -- Sadarghat to Gabtoli -- causing a loss of more than Tk 20,000 a day to Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation which operates the service. The vessels were built at a cost of Tk 1.11 crore with their engines imported from the UK, BIWTC sources said.
On the Sadarghat-Gabtoli road, 105 buses operate daily, carrying thousands of passengers. The journey by bus takes up to three hours at peak time. Water bus covers its route -- about 10 kilometres -- in one hour and 30 minutes, and in a much more comfortable manner.
Moreover, the waterbus service has failed to attract passengers on a route dotted with suburban localities inhabited by Lakhs. People of nearby Basila and Shyamlashi areas have been demanding stoppages at the landing facilities there. They said it is not understandable how the service was planned ignoring important localities near the route.
"Lots of people from our village travel to Gabtoli every morning . But they have to take a much longer route to reach there, which takes up to two hours and costs more," said Deen Islam, a shopkeeper in Shyamlashi. "It would be a 15-minute journey by waterbus. We cannot understand why these vessels do not stop here," he added.
Contacted, a BIWTC official said, "Waterbus service did not click because there was no planning to attract passengers. Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority had pledged to build proper landing facilities but nothing has been done so far."
Seeking anonymity, another BIWTC official said, "Initially the service was so popular that at times we had to take more passengers than the vessels' capacity. But we failed to capitalise on it as the vessels started to break down."
In 2004, BIWTA built eight pontoons for starting the waterbus service. But these are not at all suitable for the two vessels used in the service. Building such vessels was a wrong decision, he added."We requested the authorities concerned to build some wooden landings but no step has yet been taken in this regard," said the official involved in the service since its launching.
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