Eid holidaymakers allege corruption in train ticket sale

People who spent excruciating long hours at Dhaka's Kamalapur Railway Station have alleged rampant corruption in the sale of advance Eid tickets.

Staff Correspondentbdnews24.com
Published : 31 August 2016, 12:38 PM
Updated : 31 August 2016, 12:38 PM

On the third day of the sale, many have failed to avail tickets to their desired destinations, particularly for air conditioned compartments.

Like the previous two days, many spent sleepless nights at the station to avail the ticket for Sep 9.

Tickets for Sep 10 and 11 will be sold on Thursday and Friday respectively.

Bangladesh may celebrate the Eid-ul-Azha on Sep 12 or 13, depending on the sighting of the moon.

Sohel Rana, a student of Shanto-Mariam University of Creative Technology, on Wednesday expressed disappointment over the management of the authorities.

He claimed that despite waiting from Tuesday afternoon and being 28th on the serial, he could not get an AC ticket.

“There are around 500 seats in three of the trains that run to Rajshahi every day. There is no chance of all AC tickets being sold even if all the customers who were in serial before me had bought AC tickets,” Sohel said.

A hullabaloo started following the announcement of tickets for Teesta Express being sold out by 9am.

Gias Uddin, who reached the Kamalapur Railway Station at 4pm on Tuesday, said: “Around 50 people have purchased tickets in the first one hour. How can I believe that all tickets of one train have been sold out by this time?”

He alleged that corruption prevailed in the ticket sale system.

However, Kamalapur Railway Station Manager Shitangshu Chakrabarty told bdnews24.com that AC tickets were sold out as they were extremely high in demand and claimed that tickets of Teesta Express were not sold out by 9am.

One of the two counters dedicated to female customers was out of operation. As a result, massive crowd was spotted in front of the only running counter.

“We are delayed because tickets are being sold from one counter only. Things could have speeded up if the two counters were in operation,” said Nur Akhter, a middle aged woman who came to the station at 4am.

After the Eid, people will be able to buy the advance return tickets at all major railway stations.

Tickets for Sep 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 will be available on Sep 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, respectively.