Rly advance tickets – Black marketeers’ hey business

THE story and image of Kamalapur Railway Station before Eid-vacation have remained the same for the last several years, illustrating the incongruity of the railway sector and the reluctance of the government to reduce the homebound people’s plight over advance train tickets. A National English daily carried a report on Monday which said the usual stories of long queues of passengers for collecting advance train tickets, passengers waiting the entire night to reach ticket booths earlier, tickets being sold-out, tickets on black marketing, the apparently fanatic efforts of authorities and frequent instructions of the Minister, and many others. Hundreds of people have been desperately trying to buy a train ticket standing in long queues for hours when some are comfortably wangling it from black marketeers.Selling-out some 10,000-12,000 tickets, out of 60,000 tickets for five days, within 4-5 hours, a surprising incident indeed, is not the symbol of the Railway authority’s speedy service nor the impact of cutting-edge technology in ticket selling but the reservation of tickets for ‘selling in the black market’ or pre-arrangement for the black market, though such allegations were denied by the authority. The standing home-bound festive makers complained that the ticket counters virtually refused to sell the tickets for air conditioned coaches to those in the queue for reasons unknown.Booking advance tickets through the online systems of Bangladesh Railway is virtually suspended due to technical problems as users failed to access the site from 9am on Sunday. Tickets for the AC coaches were not distributed as the Railway authority on the first day set only 240 tickets for sale. They said the countermen showed little interest to sell tickets to those standing in queues. A female student complained that the station’s cleaner helped several women get into the queue illegally in lieu of Tk 200. In the absence of effective measures taken by the authorities to stop irregularities, black marketeers are still active at Kamalapur Railway Station. They are offering home-bound people tickets at a rate much higher than the actual price.Admitting some irregularities, Railways Minister Mohammad Mazibul Hoque said steps would be taken to ease home-goers plights. He said as the ticket selling machines were very slow they would be replaced next year. He also gave the assurance that immediate steps would be taken to simplify selling of advance tickets. This year the railways made a schedule to sell 60,000 advance tickets at the station until July 24 with 25 per cent kept aside for online booking, five per cent for the VIPs and another five per cent for the BR employees and officials. We have been given hundreds of pledges for many years before, when Eid approaches, over smooth ticket availability, introducing modern tech to ease tickets reservation, all-out steps for reducing the plight of home-goers, bolstering drive against ticket black-marketing, and etc, but nothing has been done. It is clear that corrupt forces are more powerful than the government. Any government with any sense of authority would not have allowed the corrupt elements to show their ability to discredit the government.