The long journey home for Eid
This year is no different from others for those hoping to go home for the Eid festivities. We are weeks away from Eid but already people are spending hours on end to get their hands on advance tickets. As usual, bus operators are claiming that tickets have been "sold out" which apparently is a regular even before Eid. Passengers claim that a block of tickets for both road and rail are kept in reserve for sale to "VIPs", something that is refuted by bus operators. We fail to see how all tickets can be sold out so early on. It is also disheartening to see that passengers are being forced to fork out higher fare during this time of year. The situation is somewhat better on railway but we still find people waiting in line for tickets overnight, many of whom must take "sehri" on Kamlapur rail station in a bid to be ahead in line when the counter opens.
These are problems that we see every year. Hence the question, why authorities cannot ensure that the transport companies do not exploit the high demand for tickets during Eid? Why can't the railway and transport companies put up more tickets for sale online to alleviate both passengers' woes and cut down on the risk of middlemen getting involved to create an artificial scarcity of tickets? These are doable measures definitely and would go some way to alleviate sufferings of the people headed home to spend Eid with their loved ones.
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