No advance bus tickets for journey outside the capital from September 6 onwards were available on Wednesday, forcing people willing to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with their family to buy tickets on the black markets.
City dwellers continue crowding bus and launch terminals and the Kamlapur railway station for advance tickets and a large number of them are yet to get any ticket.
Although the Bangladesh Railway started selling advance tickets on Tuesday, many alleged they could not get tickets for the dates of their choice even after waiting in queues for a long time.
Sales of advance tickets for launches headed for the south will begin on September 6.
Allegations have it that people can manage tickets on the black market and most of the tickets for cabins have already been sold out.
People rushing for tickets alleged people on the black market with the connivance of employees at ticket counters had booked tickets for selling them later at higher prices.
The long-distance road transport companies such as Hanif Enterprise, Shohag, Shyamoli Paribahan, NP Elegance and SR Travels started selling tickets in the past week for different destinations such as Sylhet, Chittagong, Bogra, Rangpur, Dinajpur, Pabna, Kushtia, Jessore, Rajshahi and Chapainawababganj. More than 3,000 chair coaches ply the routes.
Bus counter people and other officials of transport companies said most of the tickets had been sold by noon of the day when they started selling the advance tickets.
They, however, blamed government and non-government agencies for the situation as a large number of tickets had been kept aside for people high up in such agencies.
‘Every year we need to keep aside a large number of tickets for them. High officials of government agencies such as Rapid Action Battalion, the police and the army ask for tickets. We have no option but to keep aside tickets for them,’ said an employee of the SR Travels, a bus service plying routes from Dhaka to the north.’
‘I have failed to manage a SR Travels ticket to go to Bogra,’ Sheikh Rahim, who had rushed to the Gabtali bus terminal Saturday, said. ‘I, however, managed two tickets of the same operator after requesting one of my relations who is a high up in a government office.’
People alleged a section of people on the black market with the connivance of the people in the bus counters had booked advance tickets for sales for higher prices later.
Although the people said bus operators were charging extra money, the operators brushed aside the allegation saying they were charging fares as set by the government.
‘I needed to pay Tk 350 for each ticket to Rajshahi. The fare earlier was only Tk 250,’ said Adnan Rafiq, an employee of a private company, on Wednesday at the Gabtali bus terminal.
The state-run Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation will start selling advance tickets on September 4 as additional buses, alongside regular buses, will travel on inter-district routes during Eid holiday, a BRTC statement said Sunday.
Two hundred BRTC buses will ply the routes beginning on September 8. The buses will be on the road for three days after Eid.
The Bangladesh Railway started selling advance tickets on Tuesday. Train tickets for September 7 will be sold on September 2, for September 8 on September 3 and for September 9 on September 4.
Railway will also sell advance tickets at the Airport and Joydevpur stations from today, according to the schedule.
Approximately 1.12 crore people live in the capital and three-fourths of them are expected to leave the capital during the Eid holiday, sources in transport companies said.
