Five hundred people on average hunted for train tickets against each seat as tickets went on 100-per cent online sales for Eid special trains for the first time.
The Bangladesh Railway (BR) has so far been able to sell 90 per cent of its tickets for Eid special trains online that started on April 07.
Sources said the remaining 10 per cent unsold tickets are either refunded or face technical glitches.
The BR launched 100-per cent sale of tickets for regular train service keeping a provision of selling each ticket online by one NID on April 01.
It started issuing special train tickets on April 07 for travelling from April 17.
The rail authorities kept selling five days' tickets for trips on April 17, 18, 19, 20 and 21.
A total of 116,364 tickets for travel for the designated period have been sold.
Official figures showed 19,500 tickets were sold for 17 April, 22,300 for 18 April, 24,500 for 19 April, 26,109 for 20 April and 24,200 for 21 April.
Shohoz, a vendor of operating and managing online tickets for the BR, found 12-million people on average hit its official page in the first hours of each day.
BR officials said 25,000 tickets on average were issued for Eid days from Dhaka.
The move to stop black marketing of tickets before and after Eid changed the traditional scene at Kamalapur station as ticket counters were almost empty during the ticket-selling period.
Earlier, buyers used to stay at Kamalapur overnight to get tickets of their desired trains from counters. The situation could not be improved even after launching half the tickets online.
The new move, welcomed by many, is yet to ensure the fully hassle-free sale of tickets in what BR officials claim due to a huge gap between demand and supply.
But due to technical faults and lack of cooperation between the BR and Shohoz, many passengers could not get tickets even after making payments online.
They alleged that the email support did not work, leading them to Kamalapur for a solution but to no avail. They found no help for lack of customer care.
Shohoz earlier claimed that it had enough space for visitors to get access at a time, but server down made the home-bound passengers suffer.
However, Shohoz business development officer Jubaer Hossain said their support centre issues tickets on every query.
On unsold tickets, the Shohoz spokesperson said tickets are available online until the departure of a train.
smunima@yahoo.com