In Dhaka, long queues at fuel pumps drain Pahela Baishakh joy

Many motorists have spent six to seven hours waiting for fuel on the first day of the Bengali New Year

By the time Mezbah Haque reached the petrol pump at Asad Gate, his plans for Pahela Baishakh had already begun to fade.

He had left his home in Mirpur's Kazipara at 5am on Tuesday, hoping to fill up his motorcycle in the relative cool of the early morning and spend the first day of the Bengali New Year with his family. Instead, he found a line of motorcycles already stretching for more than a kilometre.

With no choice but to join the queue, he waited.

Around 12:15pm, he had finally reached the entrance to the Sonar Bangla pump in Mohammadpur. Even then, 10 to 12 motorcycles were still waiting ahead of him.

With a weary smile, Mezbah said: “I told my two daughters I’d get fuel and then take them out. But I’m already so tired that I don’t think I’ll have the strength to even stand once I get home.”

He did eventually get fuel. But around 1pm, the pump announced that its stock had run out, leaving several hundred motorcyclists and drivers still waiting in line.

Such were the scenes across Dhaka on the first day of Baishakh.

Despite the public holiday, long queues formed at fuel pumps in different parts of the city, with people waiting for six to seven hours in the blazing summer heat in the hope of filling their tanks.

Student Shihab Imran, who was waiting in the same queue, said the government’s Fuel Pass app had done little to ease the situation.

“The government introduced a Fuel Pass app for getting fuel at two pumps. But it did not remain active for even two days,” he said.

“Today I found the app was working again. But there is no separate line or any facility for app users at this pump. Yet we had been told that no fuel would be given at the Trust and Sonar Bangla pumps without the app.”

Things seemed similar at the Talukdar Pump near the parliament complex gate at Asad Gate, where long lines of cars and motorcycles snaked down the road.

Past the July Memorial Museum, formerly the Gonobhaban, motorcycles stood lined up along the left side of the street beside a row of cars. Their riders waited on the pavement under the shade of trees, darting back to the road each time the line moved.

They pushed their motorcycles forward by hand, often gaining only a few yards at a time.

Then came another announcement: the pump was out of fuel.

Engineer Md Iftekhar, who was in the queue, said the government had yet to properly explain why people were enduring such hardship.

“People are suffering so much, yet the government is not even speaking about it,” he said.

“At first, they said there was no fuel shortage. But since then, the queues have only grown longer. If there really is no shortage, the government should clearly explain why people are enduring such hardship.”

Visibly frustrated, he said the crisis was also affecting his work.

“I run an air-conditioner and refrigerator business. The season has just started, but I cannot get around. There’s no fuel,” he said.

“On Pahela Baishakh, instead of spending time with my family, I’m losing the whole day at the pump.”