The authorities are struggling to meet the increased demand for Rapid passes to be used for metro rail journeys amid an ongoing crisis of single journey tickets.
The authorities said that they had now a stock of around 70,000 passes which was likely to be sold out within maximum 20 days.
A move to procure 3,00,000 passes is yet to receive approval from the road transport and bridges ministry.
Upon approval the manufacturing company usually asks for at least 15 days to deliver around 50,000 passes in the first lot. With it the shipment time would add.聽
The ticket crisis has caused continued suffering to the users of the country鈥檚 first-ever air-conditioned and electricity-powered elevated rail service in the capital on the Uttara-Motijheel route.
Lacking single journey tickets, passengers are often becoming unable to get into the stations.
The passengers with Mass Rapid Transit or Rapid passes are being allowed to use the service, the officials said.
According to the Dhaka MRT Company Limited, the implementing agency of the Mass Rapid Transit Line-6 project, popularly known as the metro rail, currently 40鈥�50 per cent passengers are using single journey tickets while the rest of the passengers are using the reusable and rechargeable MRT and Rapid passes.
On October 14, the company officially stopped selling MRT passes.
The company initially introduced 3.13 lakh single-journey tickets of which around two lakh went 鈥榤issing鈥� as passengers did not return them through the ticket machines after using them.
For introducing an integrated e-ticketing system鈥擮ne Card for all Transport鈥攆or all public transports, the Dhaka Transport Coordination Authority introduced the Rapid pass.
After the ouster of the Sheikh Hasina-led regime in August amid a student-mass uprising, the government took decision to use only the Rapid pass for cost reduction. On August 21 tender was called under an open tender method to procure three lakh Rapid passes.
In response, 14 local and foreign companies bought tender documents but only聽 four companies鈥攆rom Bangladesh, Indonesia and Vietnam鈥攕ubmitted the tender.
After scrutiny only one Indonesian company was selected. The company鈥檚 supplier is a Bangladeshi national.
Silkways, a Bangladeshi company which is currently supplying the Rapid passes failed in the latest tender as it failed to fulfil a procurement criterion, said a Dhaka transport coordination authority official, preferring anonymity.
The official said that they had sent the final tender document to the ministry on December 5 for approval.
On December 20, the Dhaka MRT Company Limited started selling rapid passes from its different stations amid a crisis of single journey tickets.
Dhaka transport coordination authority officials also said that the number of Rapid passes sold on December 20 was 3,174, on December 21, the number was 7,902 and on December 22, around 4,000 were sold.
Currently, the DMTCL has around 35,000, and the DTCA has 30,000 rapid passes.
鈥業n this pace, all the passes in stock are likely to be sold out in 15鈥�20 days,鈥� said another DTCA officer.
According to the authority, the government bought around 5.2 lakh MRT and 4.8 lakh Rapid passes till now.
In 2018, the government first procured 60,000 rapid passes costing Tk 208 for each. At present a pass costs Tk 328.
The company selected under the latest tender will charge Tk 300 for each pass.聽聽
The DMTCL is working to introduce a ticketing system based on quick response code at the end of January 2025 to reduce the crisis resulted from the shortage of single journey tickets.
On Friday, Dhaka transport coordination authority executive director Neelima Akhter told 抖阴精品 that they were hoping that the ministry would soon approve the final tender document for procuring new passes.
