The sales of advance tickets for different railway routes started Tuesday morning at four different stations in Dhaka and Sylhet on the occasion of Eid, with people standing in long queues to collect the tickets, the Bangladesh Railway officials said.
Homebound passengers rushed to the Kamalapur rail station in the early hours of Tuesday to collect advance tickets for journeys on September 5 to go out of the capital to celebrate Eid, expected to fall on September 10 or 11.
Hundreds of buyers could manage their tickets after at least three hours’ waiting at the station while a Dinajpur-bound ticket buyer, Abdur Rhman, waited for about 16 hours to collect his ticket for Lalmonirhat Express.
Long queues were seen for the Rajshahi-bound Silk City, Dhumketu and Padma Expresses, Khulna-bound Sundarban and Chitra Expresses, Dinajpur-bound Ekata and Lalmonirhat-bound Lalmonirhat expresses in the rail station.
Approximately 1.12 crore people are living in the capital and about 75 per cent of them are expected to leave the capital during the Eid vacations by road, rail and river ways, sources in transportation business said.
The BR would provide transport facilities for one lakh home-bound people this year.
The tickets can be bought five days ahead of the date of journey from the ticket counters of Kamalapur, Airport, Joydebpur and Sylhet rail stations from 9:00am to 5:00pm every day.
Tickets for journey on September 6 would be sold on September 1, those for September 7 on September 2, those for September 8 on September 3 and those for September 9 on September 4.
The security personnel apprehend that they face problem in tackling crowd on September 3 and 4 as the tickets for journey on September 8 and 9 will be sold theses days.
The passengers can also book tickets through Short Message Service of their mobile phones, officials said.
But several buyers, however, alleged that they failed to collect ticket because of network problem.
Besides, standing tickets (for journeys without sitting arrangement) will be available at the station counters every day to cope with the rush of additional passengers for Eid, the BR officials said.
Khulna-bound passenger Mohammad Azad told New Age, ‘Tickets for first class and air-conditioned compartments became unavailable immediately after the counters opened. Sellers are claiming that the tickets have already been sold out.’
Sources at the station also said the ticket-sellers had collaborations with touts and they have set people in the queues to collect tickets for selling them on black market.
The Kamalapur station manager, Abdullah Al Masum, however, denied the allegation and said one could collect only four tickets at once.
‘Rapid Action Battalion and additional police are also deployed at the station to prevent ticket touting and maintain security and order,’ Masum said.
The RAB-3 officials at the station complainant desk said they did not receive any major allegation from anyone till 2:00pm on the day.
Admitting lack of resources, the official said they would run 16 intercity trains for Eid and special trains will run on the Dhaka-Dewanganj and Parbatipur-Dhaka routes from September 7 to the day before Eid.
The BR will add about 100 extra coaches to its intercity and main train services for safe and smooth transportation of passengers.
There will be no holidays for intercity train staff from September 5 to the day before Eid and for seven consecutive days from the second day after Eid.
