Online train ticket sale resumes

The online sale of rail tickets has been restored amid problems in purchase, including allegations of not getting internet connection in some stations.
Things hit a snag on Saturday morning just after the sale had resumed at 6:00 pm on Friday.
The Bangladesh Railway kept the online sale suspended for five days since March 20 to transfer the ticket sale system to the Sohoz-led joint venture from Computer System Network Limited.
During the period, all tickets were sold manually from station counters.
Although the BR claimed the ticket sale was smooth on Friday evening after five days' hiatus, hundreds of thousands of passengers, however, could not buy tickets online the next morning.
After repeated attempts, one Rezaul Karim, who was planning to visit Tangail on Thursday by train, could only purchase tickets in the afternoon.
But he said there was no seat number in the tickets.
Similarly, one Sajib only succeeded in buying two tickets in the afternoon amid his long try since 8:00 am on Monday.
Sohoz public relations manager Farhat Ahmed, however, claimed all 77 stations, except the apps, have been linked online and sale through the BR website is operating smoothly.
Admitting disruptions on Saturday morning, he told the FE that the Sohoz team worked all day after finding a hit of 200,000 just after the sale began at 8:00 am.
"Cyber hacking was apprehended as we found 2.2 million in a minute and most of which from outside of the country," said Mr Ahmed.
"As this is not normal, our team worked day and night over the issue and was finally able to fix the problem," he said this over phone.

smunima@yahoo.com