Eid passengers hostage to ticket brokers
Sufferings of thousands of commuters eager to meet their near and dear ones away from the port city of Chittagong at Eid mounted due to unavailability of the tickets of inter-district buses and trains.
Black marketeers are holding a large chunk of tickets of the buses and trains prior to Eid.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. Many people were found disgruntled and angry at the Battali railway station on November 8 after failing to get ticket. On the other hand, those who could procure tickets had to pay much higher than the actual fare.
Besides, the situation aggravated as the bus services enhanced the fare from TK 30 to TK 200 per seat ahead of the Eid. The fare will go up everyday till Eid Day, a staff of S Alam bus service said.
Bangladesh Railway started selling advance tickets on November 5 for five days on the occasion Eid. The tickets are sold between 8.00am and 4.00pm. But hundreds of passengers could not collect their tickets even standing on the long queue at the railway station just after having their Sehri.
Md. Russel Bhuiyan, a staff of Bangladesh Betar, Chittagong Centre, on the queue for tickets on November 6 said that if a ticket is issued to the commuter, two others are being printed out from the computer to keep inside the counter desk of the railway official.
"I came at the station after having my Sehri and the authorities started selling of tickets at 8.00am. But all the tickets were "sold" within two hours and I could not procure a single ticket of Subarna Express for November 11 to go home in Dhaka", Russel said.
Sources said, the black marketeers in connivance with a section of dishonest railway employees have booked most of the seats of the seven inter-city trains of different routes till the Eid day. As a result, hundreds of people intended to go home on Eid could not collect their advance tickets. The railway authorities, however, denied the allegation of selling out tickets in black markets.
Seven inter-city trains ply three routes from Chittagong, including Chittagong-Dhaka, Chittagong-Sylhet and Chittagong-Chandpur, with capacity of 4,849 passengers daily.
Railway sources said, 3,847 tickets for November 10, 4849 for November 11, 4,791 for November 12 and 3,500 tickets for November 13 have so far been sold out.
But the real scenario is different. While visiting the city's railway station the correspondent found that there was no unsold tickets for November 5 and 6 in Chittagong-Dhaka and Chittagong-Chandpur routes and hundreds of people went back without any ticket.
It was also found that blacker was selling tickets at the station on the nose of the railway authorities and the members of team responsible for checking black marketing of tickets.
One of the black marketeers said that they would earn Tk100 against each seat from November 10. But he refused to reveal the source from where they collected these tickets.
On the other hand, bus fare also went up unreasonably ahead of the Eid.
Mahmud Major, a student of Chittagong University told The Daily Star that he paid an additional price of TK150 than the normal price for a ticket of a bus run by Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation (BRTC) to go home in Rangpur. "Normally state-owned BRTC sells each ticket at Tk 250 and the private buses at Tk 350. But I had to pay Tk 400 for a BRTC bus ticket while the price of private buses were charging Tk 200 more than the actual price against each ticket," he added.
Meanwhile, some 550 buses will ply under the supervision of Inter-district Bus Owners Association. The buses will ply 31 routes regularly and the fare would not be enhanced, association sources said. An official of the association preferring anonymity said that we are not responsible at all to check the fare hike. "Bangladesh Road and Transport Authority (BRTA) and traffic department of police are responsible," he added.
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