A woman is all smiles after getting hold of an advance train ticket while others are waiting in long queues for the same at the Kamalapur Railway Station in the city on Wednesday — FE photo The online ticketing system of Bangladesh Railway (BR) frustrated the e-ticket buyers as the online server broke down on the first day of advance train ticket sale on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, hundreds of people thronged five different places, including the the Kamalapur Railway Station, in the city to collect advance tickets for Eid holidays in person.
The online server of CNS Limited, a private company providing the e-ticket booking service, remained out of service for hours, disrupting ticket sale.
Many online ticket seekers also claimed that they didn't get tickets even after paying money through the e-ticket app.
Ruling out any possibility of corruption involving the online ticket sale, the railways minister termed it a 'technical glitch' while visiting the Kamalapur Railway Station in the morning.
The BR set aside 50 per cent of a total of 28,000 intercity train tickets for online buyers.
Tickets for May 31 were sold on Wednesday. Tickets for June 1,2,3 and 4 will be sold between May 23 and 26. Each person can buy a maximum of four tickets at a time.
The ticket seekers who thronged different rail stations this year did not have to face as much hassle as in the previous years, as the BR has been selling tickets at five different places.
Ishrat Jahan Itu, a student of Lalmatia College, managed to buy tickets of a Rangpur-bound train after spending seven hours in a queue.
She came to Kamalapur station at 4.00am with two of her friends. She was standing behind 84 people in the queue and got the ticket at 11.00am.
But not all the ticket seekers were lucky as Itu.
Abul Bashar Limon, an employee at a clothes store, told the FE that the crowd in the station started growing after 9:00am as more people rushed in after failing to book tickets online.
"After failing to access the server of the app for online tickets in the morning, I came to Kamalapur to collect tickets of any Dinajpur-bound train for May 31," he said.
Md Mosharraf Hossain, a Janata Bank official, also had the same experience as Mr Limon.
Meanwhile, most of the online ticket seekers were unable to buy tickets as the server was out of service most of the time while some others did not get tickets even after payment.
Mashfiqur Rahman Razu could access the server at 9.15am, completed all the steps to book a ticket of Lalmoni Express and paid Tk 465 through the ticketing app, but he didn't get any confirmation message until 12.00 noon.
He alleged that the CNS Ltd. and railway officials might have formed a syndicate to sell such tickets on the black market.
Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujon, however, dismissed the allegation of corruption involving the online ticket sale while visiting the Kamalapur station.
He said the server is a new one and the CNS Ltd. has been asked to solve the matter by May 27.
He regretted the technical glitch and said the unsold online tickets would be sold at the counters, if the CNS couldn't solve the technical problem by that time.
An Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) team led by its Deputy Director Manirul Islam also visited Kamalapur Railway Station to look into the matter.
The team talked to some officials of the rail station and enquired about the matter.
Manirul Islam said they were visiting the station after receiving complaints of irregularities in the online ticket sale and that they would carry out further investigation.
Tickets to various destinations in Rajshahi, Rangpur and Khulna division were sold at Kamalapur station and tickets to Chattogram were sold at Airport Railway Station.
Tickets to Mymensingh and Jamalpur districts were sold at Tejgaon Railway Station and tickets to Netrakona at Banani Railway Station.
Sylhet- and Kishoreganj-bound passengers bought tickets from the Old Rail Bhaban in Fulbaria.
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