Bangladesh
Bangladesh Railway Crowd seen at railway stations to buy train tickets physically
Own Correspondent, Dhaka, March 24: On Thursday, the fourth day of the 'five-day closure' of online train ticket sales, Kamalapur railway station in the capital was overcrowded. Passengers have been waiting in queues for hours to buy tickets offline. As all the tickets were sold physically at the station, the pressure on the railway officials and employees also increased.
Long queues were seen at the station's ticket counters on Thursday (March 24) morning. Thousands of passengers were waiting even amid the rising temperature. People are booking tickets to go to different destinations from Dhaka on Thursday and Friday (March 25). Many are desperate to get train tickets to go out of Dhaka as Friday and Saturday are holidays. As a result, the station is more crowded today than any other day.
A female booking assistant at the counter said, "It takes some time to sell tickets manually. Many cannot come and say the name of the train. Take the time to confirm how many tickets it will take, which station to go to. After that, it takes a long time to get a ticket for various reasons including dragging the seat number, not having time to pay."
Kamalapur Railway Stationmaster Md. Afshar Uddin said, "There is a lot of pressure at the station as online ticket sales have stopped. As the passengers are suffering, we are also suffering. Officers and employees are working tirelessly to alleviate the suffering of the passengers. I hope this suffering will go away soon."
Earlier on March 14, during a press conference, Railway Minister Nurul Islam Sujon announced a 'temporary closure' on the online train ticket sales from March 21 to 25. On the same day, the minister said that 'Sahaj' is taking five days for the internal setup to sell the tickets online. They will start selling train tickets from March 26.
He added that earlier five-day advance tickets were sold, but they would not be issued at that time. Today and tomorrow, tickets will be given from the counter. There will be no quota or seat reservation.
