People queue up at the ticket counter of an intercity bus service provider at Gabtoli yesterday to get advance tickets for their Eid holidays home. They had been waiting in line since before dawn. Photo: Star Bus tickets for some particular days ahead of Eid were exhausted hours after private operators began selling advance tickets yesterday. Eid-ul-Fitr will be celebrated on July 29 or 30. The de
mand for tickets for July 24, 25 and 27 was very high and so all tickets to travel on these days were sold in a few hours, bus operators said. Many passengers failed to get tickets for the days they had planned to travel, even after standing in long queues at different bus counters in the capital for hours. Passengers said bus operators had intentionally stopped selling tickets, as they wanted to keep those for VIPs or sell those on the black market. Besides, many passengers alleged that bus operators were charging them additional fare for travel during the Eid rush. Bus owners refuted the allegations, saying they were charging passengers the government-set fares. Rahat, a private university student, bought a ticket of Shyamoli Paribahan from its Technical counter around 1:30pm. He said he wanted to go home on July 24. But ticket sellers told him that there was no ticket of Rangpur-bound buses for July 24, 25 and 27 and so he had to get a ticket for July 23. The sale of advance tickets of Shyamoli Paribahan began around 7:00am yesterday. The Daily Star correspondent talked to more than a dozen ticket seekers there. All of them complained that they could not get tickets for the days they wanted to go home. A long queue of over 100 people was seen at the SR Paribahan's counter in Gabtoli. The ticket distribution process was found to be very slow. The door to the counter was partially closed. Five people were seen purchasing tickets in 20 minutes. Passengers said the counter staff were slowly selling tickets so that they would have tickets to sell on the black market later. A man shows off the tickets he got for the busiest travelling time of the year. Photo: Star Around 3:00pm, a staff of the counter announced that there was no ticket for July 24 and 27. At Gabtoli counter of Hanif Paribahan, two people were asking for tickets of Dinajpur-bound buses for July 24. The counter staff replied that tickets for July 24 and 25 had already been sold. About extra charges, a passenger, Kabir Hossain, said he usually travelled from Dhaka to Dinajpur for Tk 600. But Hanif Paribahan yesterday charged him Tk 630 a ticket. Shyamoli Paribahan Managing Director Romesh Chandra Ghosh said tickets for all other days of the month, except July 24 and 25, were available. Mosharaf Hossain, an official of Hanif Paribahan, said tickets of most of the northern districts-bound buses for July 24 and 27 had been sold. Now, passengers are buying tickets to travel on other days, he added. Both Romesh and Mosharaf rejected the allegations of extra fare.
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