The New Nation - Internet Edition

Staff Reporter

Tens of thousands of homebound people, even after waiting in queues for hours at transport ticket counters in the city yesterday, have failed to procure tickets for celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with their near and dear ones at home.

Seeing no hope of getting tickets after long wait, many people returned to their city residences with gloomy faces.

The fortunate ones, who won the battle of buying tickets, had to pay extra to fulfill their hopes to celebrate Eid at village homes. Only a small number of tickets were available from ticket counters while black marketers had a field day.

Many people, including women and children, were seen falling sick during their long wait in front of the ticket counters. Many prudent city dwellers, planning to celebrate Eid with their kith and kin, earlier sent their family members home to avoid such sufferings.

Most of the people gathered in the Gabtali terminal for journey to the southwest parts of the country. In this area main transport was bus, so suffered the most as most of them failed to get tickets for homebound journey.

Rokonuzzaman, a banker, said he had failed to procure a train ticket for himself, "Just to avoid such an usual scenario, I sent my family members to Sylhet a week ago."

At Kamalapur railway station, a Chittagong-bound train passenger Shammi Akhter said her two-year-old son had fainted amid heavy crowd-pressure, but her husband could not manage any ticket despite a long wait in queue.

He said that earlier a man had assured him to provide a ticket at double the cost, "but sensing your (journalist) presence, the black marketer has disappeared in the crowd."

Almost the same picture prevails elsewhere - at Gabtoli, Mohakhali and Sayedabad bus terminals and at Sadarghat launch terminal.

Railway ticket clerks, however, denied the allegation of charging any extra for tickets and of black marketing. "Tickets are being sold at government fixed rates. Law enforcing teams and the railway authority are closely monitoring the situation."

A Barisal-bound launch passenger, Badhan said he was compelled to buy a ticket from a man at Tk 400, more than twice the fixed fare of Tk 184.

The launch passengers were also seen scrambling for a place even at the deck of launch by paying extras for tickets. Vessels with overloaded passengers were seen leaving the Sadarghat launch terminal. Some launches were seen boarding passengers by boat at midstream in the River Buriganga to avoid the patrol teams, terminal sources said.

Rejecting the allegation of extra fare charges, BIWTA secretary Monwar Hossain told the New Nation that there is no scope of taking extra charges from passengers as they monitor the whole situation closely. "Rather, the launch authority sometimes takes less than the fare fixed by the government for each destination."

He said that special launches have begun carrying passengers on 15 routes from September 25 ahead of the Eid festival and such special launches would continue till October 7.

The authorities have also introduced special trains and buses on various routes to make travel easier for the people wishing to celebrate Eid at their village homes.