The order will remain in force for the next two weeks.<\/p>\n
In the wake of growing Covid-19 cases and deaths, the government has increased the fares of public transport by 60% across the country as they will run with 50% passengers of carrying capacity from Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The order will remain in force for the next two weeks, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said during an online press briefing on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Passengers will have to pay the additional bus fares from Wednesday, he said.<\/p>\n
On May 31, 2020, the government had raised the fares of inter-district and long-haul buses and minibuses by 60% in order to compensate bus owners carrying 50% less passengers amid the Covid-19 pandemic. Public transport had enjoyed that hike for two months.<\/p>\n
With Covid-19 cases and deaths seeing a sharp rise over the past few weeks, the government on Monday again resorted to the same strategy in a bid to curb the Covid-19 surge, along with a fresh set of new restrictions.<\/p>\n
As per the order, apart from carrying only 50% passengers, public transports will also have to comply with hygiene rules. It also said that inter-district vehicular movement should be restricted to high-risk areas of infection and kept shut if necessary.<\/p>\n
Obaidul Quader said the fares will be decreased to what they are right now once the Covid-19 situation comes under control.<\/p>\n
The minister asked the public transport owners and workers to be strict and ensure the absolute implementation of the hygiene rules, including masks and hand sanitisers.<\/p>\n
Bangladesh Railway on Tuesday also announced that trains will also carry 50% passengers from April 1 for the next two weeks, in order to ensure the safety of the people.<\/p>\n
It also said that 50% of the tickets for each train will be sold \u2014 25% of those will be sold at the counters and 25% online.<\/p>\n
Keeping with the recent surge in Covid-19 infections, the country on Monday recorded the highest ever cases \u2014 5,181 \u2014 in a single day since March last year and the highest number of deaths \u2014 45 \u2014 since August 28 last year.<\/p>\n
With those numbers, the death toll went up to 8,949 and the total number of cases to 600,895, according to the health directorate.<\/p>\n
Minister Quader on Tuesday also urged the people of the country to follow the 18 directives, issued by the government on Monday, and help curb the Covid-19 surge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The order will remain in force for the next two weeks. In the wake of growing Covid-19 cases and deaths, the government has increased the fares of public transport by 60% across the country as they will run with 50% passengers of carrying capacity from Wednesday. The order will remain in force for the next […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1201,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1200","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1200"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1202,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1200\/revisions\/1202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1200"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1200"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/financialherald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1200"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}