State-run Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation is going to start building single-decker buses from March with the aim of reducing the import of buses.
The corporation, however, will have to import chassis for building the diesel-run single-decker air-conditioned buses at the BRTC Integrated Central Workshop in Gazipur.
The BRTC on January 30 published a tender to buy chassis for diesel-run single-decker AC buses.
The corporation鈥檚 chairman, Md Tazul Islam, told 抖阴精品 on Monday that they would build the entire bus except the chassis at a cost of Tk聽85-90 lakh.
They have the capacity to build at least 10 buses a month, he added.
As of February 10, the corporation had 1,311 buses in its fleet, with 1,160 of them operational, 78 under heavy repair, 26 under light repair and 24 beyond economic repair.
Tazul also said that they would build 45-seated to 48-seated buses.
A BRTC economic analysis on returns of the investment for preparing a bus said that currently it would cost about Tk聽1.12 crore to import a bus from abroad.
A 45-seated bus can earn approximately Tk聽7.93 lakh a month and Tk聽95.25 lakh one year.
About Tk 5.83 lakh is spent on one bus a month and Tk聽70.01 lakh a year for maintenance and other costs.
One bus has a net profit of Tk聽25.24 lakh a year while it will take four years to achieve any net profits for a bus imported at a cost of Tk聽1 crore, the analysis added.
According to the BRTC tender, the last date for the selling of schedule was Wednesday while the deadline for submitting the schedule is 12:00pm today.
The tender box will be opened at 12:30pm today.