BR, BRTC begin advance ticket sale for Eid today

Advance ticket sale of state-run Bangladesh Railway (BR) and BRTC ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr begins today (Sunday), while people started gathering at bus counters and railway stations from Saturday night, long before the beginning of official sale, sources said.
Private bus companies began to sell advance tickets from July 14. After failing to manage those bus tickets and also to avoid traffic jams on the highways, thousands of ticket aspirants are now in a rush to get train tickets.
BR will sell advance tickets for July 24 to 28 from July 20 to 24 respectively. But its arrangement is lower as usual than the actual requirement, sources said.
Visiting the Kamalapur Railway Station (KRS) in the city on Saturday night it was seen that hundreds of people were busy in securing their position on the queues, which will lead them to get train tickets of July 24 on Sunday morning.
Train and bus tickets for July 24, 25 and 27 were in the highest demand, so higher rush of passengers was expected at Kamalapur Sunday.
"I've come here after Iftar and have been able to secure tenth position on the queue, I'm sure of getting four tickets of Lalmoni Express," said Mashiur Rahman Bashunia, an official at a furniture company in Dhaka, while standing on the queue Saturday to manage tickets to go to his hometown Lalmonirhat.   
He said in the morning he will go to his office at Shewrapara, and his younger brother will replace him on the queue.
"We've failed to collect July 24 bus tickets of private operators like Hanif, Nabil and SR Travels etc. Train is our last option," he said.    
A Kamalapur station official said nearly 18,500 tickets will be sold from the counters, apart from quota for staffs, defence officials and mobile ticketing.
He said this year the situation will be the same as the previous year, as no notable change is being seen in railway system. BR's passenger-carrying capacity has remained unchanged against a steady rise in the demand for rail communication.
Ahead of Eid, around 0.1 million people will be able to travel on 43 trains, of which 29 are intercity and 14 are mail trains that operate daily from Dhaka to different districts. Last year a total of 42 trains moved to and from Dhaka.
He also said BR is going to introduce three special intercity trains that will operate on Dhaka-Dewanganj-Dhaka, Dhaka-Parbatipur-Dhaka and Dhaka-Khulna-Dhaka routes on July 26, 27 and 28.
"The demand for BR's tickets is nearly 1.0 million against its capacity of only 0.1 million," he added.
Advance sale of tickets for BRTC Eid Special Service also begins today (Sunday) ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr.
The special bus service will start from Monday and will continue till three days after Eid, BRTC officials said.
The tickets are available at BRTC's Motijheel, Joarsahara, Kalyanpur, Mirpur and Fulbaria depots in the capital.
For the service, a total of 500 single- and double-decker buses will be travelling from the capital to other districts, and a total of 1,000 buses will be in operation on different inter-district routes, they said.
BRTC director (admin and operation) Nikhil Ranjan Roy said 83 AC buses will also be added to the Eid special service, and another 5 buses will be kept reserved to provide help to affected buses.   
When contacted, BRTC Chairman Jashim Uddin Ahmed told the FE that BRTC's capacity has been increased by 25 per cent during the last three-four years. The corporation-run buses are now carrying nearly 1.5 million people a day across the country.
He also mentioned that prices of tickets have been fixed by the corporation.
"If any staff is found collecting extra money from passengers, stern action will be taken against him and lease of the bus will be cancelled."
Helpdesks have been installed at every BRTC depot, he added.