It was 12:35pm. Some 15 to 20 people were waiting at the office of Kamalapur Station Manager Masud Sarwar. But he was not there. They all were seeking tickets of Kurigram Express yesterday, the first day of advance train ticket sales of Bangladesh Railway ahead of the Eid.
They all were asking almost the same questions. Why would they not get tickets even after spending almost a whole night at the station? Why the sale of tickets online finished within a minute after the opening of the day's sale?
A railway staffer failed to convince them by giving some explanations. At one point, an official of the Railway, Nirapatta Bahini, asked them to leave the office. "You can do this [send people out]. You even can use batons against us. But you cannot come up with a solution to this problem," said an overwrought youth.
This newspaper talked with two of the ticket seekers. One of them is Shanto, a BBA student of a private university. He said he and his friends had been trying to collect tickets online to Rangpur for the last four days, but in vain.
On Friday, he reached Airport Railway Station at 5:00am and waited four and a half hours, but could not buy a single ticket for April 26.
Shanto along with one of his friends went to Kamalapur at midnight on Saturday night. He was standing 80th in a line of several hundred people. Most of them chose to travel by train fearing possible traffic gridlocks on roads during the Eid rush.
At 12:15pm yesterday, the authorities declared that tickets of Kurigram Express for April 27 were sold out. The announcement baffled Shanto completely. "Only 60 to 62 people got tickets. How is it possible?"
About 30-40 people were still waiting before the ticket counter of Kurigram Express. One of them was Rashidul Islam. Asked why he was waiting there even after the tickets for April 27 were sold out, he said, "I came here at 5:00am today [yesterday]. I was in the 200th position in the line. So I didn't go home. I will wait here till tomorrow [today] morning to get tickets for April 28."
Uzzwal Hasan, a government employee, went to the station at 11:00am from his office. He planned to wait till 8:00am today to buytickets of Drutojan Express to go home in Joydebpur's Akkelpur upazila.
"I will go home with my family. To avoid possible tailbacks on roads, I am enduring this pain," said Uazzal, standing in the 13th position of a line.
People fear Eid rush might cause traffic congestion on a major highway that links Dhaka with the country's northern region as the expansion work of the Elenga-Rangpur highway is going on. That's why many people are preferring train over bus to go home.
HIGH DEMAND BLAMED
Advance tickets for trips to western districts and Khulna were being sold at Kamalapur yesterday. Besides, tickets were on sale at the old railway station at Phulbaria, Tejgaon, cantonment and airport railway stations for different destinations.
Speaking to this correspondent, many alleged that they could not buy tickets online after trying for several hours, but found that tickets were sold out within about a minute after the start of sale.
From Dhaka, the BR is selling around 27,000 advance tickets every day, of which 50 percent are sold online. Masud Sarwar, station manager at Kamalapur Railway Station, told journalists that when the online sale opens at 8:00am, some 500 to 700 people hit the server for a single ticket, overwhelming the server.
He, however, claimed that many passengers were able to buy tickets online, citing their online ticketing service provider Shohoz. About the suffering at ticket counters, Masud said a train usually has about 700 tickets, half of which are sold at counters.
"But in some cases, 2,000 to 3,000 people stand in a line for some 300 to 350 tickets. So it's quite normal that many people will not get tickets," he argued.
