11-hour ride a 30 hours’ordeal

An 11-hour journey from Kurigram to Dhaka is now a 30-hour ordeal.

Travelling to the capital from northern districts is getting longer than usual due to traffic congestion.

The situation was created as a number of local unfit buses ply Dhaka-Rangpur and Dhaka-Dinajpur routes to tackle the surge of Dhaka-bound passengers after Eid, said highway police.

“ Usually it's a 10 to11 hours' journey, but, it took 30 hours to reach Dhaka from Kurigram,” said Golam Mostafa, officer of Chilmari Fire Station in Kurigram.

The situation is almost same for the travellers of Dinajpur, Thakurgaon, Panchagarh, Rangpur, Joypurhat and Naogaon, said counter staff of Dhaka-bound buses from the districts. 

Meanwhile, the schedules of almost all day and night coaches were cancelled due to huge traffic jam yesterday, they said.

Travellers said the long congestion began from Pirganj of Rangpur, Gobindaganj and Palashbari of Gaibandha, Sirganj and Tangail. Situation is worse from Jamuna Bridge toward Dhaka, said Rafiqul Islam, a passenger from Rangpur.

Md Ripon, manager of SR Travels in Rangpur, said a bus left the district on Saturday morning and arrived in Dhaka around 12:00 noon yesterday. “We can't maintain schedule because of the terrible situation,” he said.

Haidar Ali, ticket counter manager of Nabil Enterprise in Dinajpur, said such a situation has created a crisis of coaches as most coaches are stranded in tailbacks in different places.

A coach, which left Dhaka on Saturday noon, arrived in Dinajpur after 20 hours, he said.

Rabiul Islam of Rangpur purchased a ticket of SR Travels for a bus, which was scheduled to leave Rangpur for Dhaka around 8:00am yesterday.

“When I phoned the counter manager, he asked me to come around 8:00pm,” he said.

Nearly 10 companies including SR Travels, Shyamoli Enterprise, Khaleque, Nabil Enterprise, Agomoni Express and Green Line operate buses between northern districts and Dhaka, and all cancelled their schedules in Dinajpur and Rangpur yesterday due to traffic congestion. 

Md Munna, a bus driver of Dinajpur, blamed the bad sate of the highways for the horrible situation.