Thousands of people thronged the counters of Kamalapur Railway Station to buy advance tickets for their home-bound journey ahead of Eid-ul-Azha, with successes for some and heartbreaks for others.
Although advance sales began around 9am on Wednesday, people started forming queues near the ticket counters long before the scheduled time, since early in the morning.
Mahbub Hasan, an advance-booker, said, “Those of us who came for advance tickets were given a ‘demand paper’ to fill in necessary information and submit it to the countermen.”
While some people managed to secure tickets on the first day of ticket sales, others were not as lucky and left empty-handed.
Mijanur Rahman, who came for tickets for a Brahmanbaria-bound train, said he needed six first-class tickets but got only two. Hasina Begum, who had been waiting for tickets since 6am, said he got none at all.
Many train commuters who failed to get tickets alleged that the railway authorities had reserved large numbers of seats for “special people,” depriving them of their due shares.
Manager of Kamalapur Railway Station Md Khairul Boshir said 45% of tickets on sale were reserved under various quotas and the remaining 55% were reserved for general commuters. The rail authorities would add extra coaches to all trains and put three extra trains on Dewanganj, Parbotipur and Khulna routes.
Khairul Boshir added, “We added extra coaches considering the bulk of pre-Eid passengers. We may add more if necessary.” Besides, he added, at least 17,000 commuters would be able to travel every day through inter-city trains.
Separate counters have been set for selling advance tickets to women. Tickets for October 11 trains were sold on Wednesday and tickets for October 12, 14, 15 trains will be sold on October 4, 5, and 6 respectively.
