It’s not strike, rather owners stop operating their buses: Shajahan Khan

GBNEWS24DESK//

Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Sramik Federation central committee president and former Shipping minister Shajahan Khan MP has said there is no transport strike going on in the country. Rather, the bus owners have stopped operating their vehicles due to diesel price hike.

“It can’t be termed as transport strike. We didn’t enforce any strike on behalf of our organisation. What we would do if the transport owners don’t want to operate their buses on roads? Drivers have also become helpless,” he said on Friday.

Shajahan Khan was going to Kushtia by road on Friday afternoon on organisational activities.

He said that the government had not taken any formal steps to resolve the deadlock in resuming the operation of transport services in the country.

“We all can try to resolve the deadlock. We want a fruitful solution to this problem. We want to extend all-out cooperation to the government to resolve the crisis,” he said.

Shajahan Khan said the transport owners are observing their programmes in the wake of sudden hike of diesel price by the government.

He thinks that the issue can be resolved by making an adjustment between increased diesel price and transport fares.

Contacted, Bangladesh Sarak Paribahan Sramik Federation general secretary Osman Ali said on Friday evening that the issue of suspension of transport operation is unlikely to be resolved before Sunday.

“A meeting is scheduled to be held at the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority’s (BRTA) head office in Dhaka on Sunday morning. A solution may come from the meeting. We didn’t enforce any strike on behalf of our organisation. The transport workers are helping the owners to observe their own programmes across the country. Hundreds of workers have become unemployed because of suspension of transports by the owners. Passengers are also facing untold sufferings coming on the roads. This problem should be resolved as quickly as possible,” he said.