Desk Report: Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA) office saw huge crowd of license and fitness certificate seekers just after the nationwide students’ protest for road safety.
However, the license seekers experienced hassle almost at every table. Meantime, the middlemen were also found active to make a fast buck.
Long queues at BRTA circle-1 office in Dhaka’s Mirpur stretched on the main road and some alleged that they could not enter into the office compound even after waiting for two hours. The road, with long queue on it, was packed with traffic while the ansar members were found at their best to smoothen the traffic movement.
BRTA officials said the cost for driving license is Tk 3,500 and it takes six to seven months. After issuing learners license, BRTA permits driving paper after six months.
Previously some 200 forms were being sold on a given day and now the number jumped to 800-1000. The counter for receiving counter and bank fee counter was sardine packed.
Rakibul Islam came to the BRTA at 10:00am office from Jatrabari to renew his license. He came to the office earlier on Sunday and returned home as the gathering was huge.
However, yesterday also was not his day as he could not even pay at the bank counter while talking to this correspondent at 2:00pm.
Meantime, the middlemen were active inside and outside of the office compound.
They had surprising entry, priority as well to everywhere- even at the bank counters. The people came down hard on the middlemen while the ansars said they were doing everything to shake off the crooks.
Assistant director (license) of BRTA Mohammad Ali Ahmed said they received around 100 applications of license and 1,500 renewal applications since last five days. The total process for both new license and renewal has gone up to 2.5 fold.
The official also agreed upon the sufferings due to the added rush. He said BRTA high-ups have been notified and the ordeals to be made tolerable soon.