People on Wednesday crowd around a help desk of Bangladesh Railway - set up at the Kamalapur Railway Station in Dhaka to facilitate passengers in purchasing intercity train tickets through using their national identity cards or birth certificates. The travellers complained that they were facing difficulty in buying tickets under the new arrangement. — FE photo by KAZ Sumon As Bangladesh Railway introduced a new ticketing system on Wednesday, many passengers faced problems to comply with it and created a chaotic situation at the Kamalapur station on the very first day.
The BR has made it compulsory for the passengers to produce their NID cards at the point of sale (POS) to get tickets, aiming to stop travelling without tickets and black marketing.
Things went smoothly in the morning when Railway Minister Nurul Islam Sujon was present at the station, according to a spot account, but later the many passengers without having online registration faced problems while trying to buy tickets from the station premises.
The BR opened a helpdesk for the passengers at the station, however the FE found more than 100 people crowded at the desk and sought help due to lack of awareness about the new system.
Mostly the elderly ones and people with lack of knowledge on the new system faced the problems when they were asked to take the help desk assistance. The attendants left the desk on being unable to tackle the pressure.
It was also found that some of the passengers were complaining about missing their desired trains due to failure in collecting tickets timely.
While visiting the station, the minister told the journalists that problems might emerge initially, but will go after evaluation of the situation and taking steps to address the issues.
The passengers, who already got in the trains with tickets purchased in advance, had also to check-in using the POS machines to ensure that the BR's mandate of the ticket holders and the passengers were the same.
The FE also found the BR personnel were checking passengers with more than one ticket to examine whether the tickets were collected with NIDs or birth registration. The process took quite a lot of time.
Earlier on February 15, the minister at a press conference announced the introduction of the new system of selling tickets of intercity trains with effect from March 01.
According to the new system, all passengers have to register online through BR's apps or mobile SMS using the NID cards and birth registration certificates. Foreigners have the option to register using their respective passports.
The new option also allows the passengers to get a refund if it is purchased online.
© 2024 - All Rights with The Financial Express
