The Rajshahi City Corporation today reopens an inter-district bus terminal that was abandoned after its inception in 2007.
The authorities concerned made the decision to ease the increasing traffic congestions in the city.
A release from the RCC said that Rajshahi mayor AHM Khairuzzaman Liton was scheduled to be present at the re-launch of the terminal built at Naodapara.
The terminal, primarily built for the inter-district buses, will shelter the inter-upazila buses also to reduce the pressure of traffics in the city, said the RCC officials.
They also informed that the terminal's construction began in 2001 and ended in 2004.
But it was not opened then for some problems.
The terminal, however, was launched in 2007 but was closed soon after its inception, the officials confirmed.
The officials said the buses plying city streets were responsible for serious traffic congestion in the city.
They said long-distance buses picked up passengers from mainly two points in the city, one was near Rajshahi railway station at Shiroil and another at Rail Gate area.
Both inter-district buses from different parts of the country and inter-upazila buses, plying 30 routes mainly in the Rajshahi division, picked up passengers from these stoppages.
Both these places were in the central part of the city and the long-distance buses moved through the city the whole day, causing jams on the roads, they complained.
The RCC release disclosed that on June 2 high officials of the RCC, the Rajshahi Development Authority and the Bangladesh Road Transport Group, an association of the private transport service providers, after a meeting at the RCC office took the decision to reopen the terminal.
RCC officials said the authorities concerned also decided to move the BRTC bus depot from Kumarpara to a separate terminal at Naodapara.
They said, according to the new decisions, the transport service providers, however, would be able to keep their ticket counters at the old bus stands and the buses would be allowed to come inside the city late at night and early morning.
The RCC had decided to launch city bus services for the city dwellers to reach Naodapara that is about 10 kilometres from the present bus stand, RCC panel mayor Shariful Islam Babu said.
The new bus terminal might need 15 more days to be in full operation, said Kamal Hossain Robi, Rajshahi divisional general secretary of Road Transport Federation.
Some extension work was going on in the terminal as it would have to make room for more vehicles than what it was originally planned for, he said.
source:New Age
