Bangladesh Railway (BR) will start selling advance train tickets from today (Sunday) ahead of the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr. Tickets can be bought from the Bangladesh Railway website, the rail service app, and the Shohoz.com ticket platform.
To ensure a hassle-free service for passengers in the holy month of Ramadan, cent percent railway tickets will be available online this time. Despite different measures taken by the authorities to stop irregularities, black marketeers are still active at Kamalapur railway station.
Ticket touts were offering home-bound people tickets at a rate a few times higher than the actual price. Members of the elite force Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) arrested nine members of an alleged syndicate responsible for black marketing train tickets at a higher price.
The arrestees include Shohoz.com peon Mizan Dhali, 48, who is the alleged mastermind of the “Dhali Syndicate”. They were hoping to make a killing by selling tickets to the home-bound people at a huge premium.
They used to sell about 2-3 thousand railway tickets every year through black marketing during every Eid season. They were planning to collect this year more tickets before the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr.
In the wake of frequent deadly road accidents there has recently been a rush for train travel. Currently, at least three lakh people travel by train every day in the country.
Despite different measures taken
by the authorities to stop
irregularities, black
marketeers are still active
The hike in bus fare has also led people to choose train as their mode of transport as the train is still offering comparatively low fare. Common people love to travel by train as it is safe, comfortable and affordable too.
But they always express their dissatisfaction and anger as they were unable to procure train tickets from the counters. Therefore, we appreciate the authorities’ move to sell cent percent of tickets online.
But the passengers are still harassed in getting railway tickets as a section of unscrupulous officials and employees are running a syndicate of black marketers in selling tickets. The railway ministry has introduced the online ticket booking system to reduce passengers’ suffering. Besides, authorities also requested the people to use their national IDs or birth certificates to buy railway tickets from the counters.
A person will not be allowed to board the train if he or she purchases a ticket using information from another national ID or birth certificate. The government has taken this step so that it can effectively put an end to ticket black marketing.
We hoped that the system of online ticket purchase and new rules would end sales of train tickets in black market. But the illegal practice is still going on.
Many complained that they have to buy tickets from the black market as online tickets are not always available. The government must go tough on the syndicate members and ensure exemplary punishment to them whoever they might be.
The railway authorities must look into this corrupt practice in the interest of the passengers. After logging in on the scheduled time and not getting tickets online, many people go directly to the railway stations to buy tickets. There is no end to the suffering.
Most fail to book a ticket after standing in long queue for hours. Some passengers also said that a strong syndicate has also been formed on social media which sells tickets using different online platforms at a high price.
