Home going passenger’s sufferings know no bound due to heave traffic gridlocks on the highways coupled with insufficient transports, victims alleged.
Besides, scarcity of tickets and their exorbitant price also hit the passengers hard.
The scenario has been observed mostly in highways and waterways. Many buses and launches were found carrying passengers beyond their capacity in presence of law enforcers.
Hundreds of thousands of city dwellers on Thursday started to go their village homes to celebrate Eid-ul-Fitr with near and dear ones as five day’s government holiday to started from today (Friday).
“Normal fare from Dhaka to Sylhet is Tk 350 in a non- air conditioned bus, but on Thursday it had rose to Tk 500 to Tk 600 in curb market of Sayadabad.
Besides, the bus employees were found charging Tk 650 instead of Tk 350 for Jessore, Tk 1500 instead of Tk 700 for Rangpur, Tk 710 instead of Tk 410 for Naogaon, Tk 800 instead of Tk 450 for Chuadanga and Tk 850 instead of Tk 450 for Barisal.
Similar scenario has been observed in other bus stations like Mohakhali, Gabtoli and others on the day. There was none to oversee the malpractices.
Capitalising the huge rush of passengers, a section of operators also launched unfit buses to carry people posing risks to the passengers lives.
Lower income group of people choose unfit vehicles and pickups due to their poor capacity.
“I could not manage advance tickets due to its scarcity. Today I bought tickets from black market with more than double rate. There is no ticket on the counters, but it is available in the black market,” Abdul Alim, a Sylhet bound passenger said.
“Communication and Shipping Ministers have assured the people of safe and comfortable journey for the last couple of days. Is it the reflection of their commitments? Alim angrily said.
However, the scenario of waterways also found more terrible than the highways.
Almost all the launches were carrying passengers beyond their capacity. Ticket fare was also found sky rocking due to their artificial scarcity.
Mozammel Hoque Chowdhury, Secretary General of Bangaldesh Jatree Kalyan Samity told it to The New Nation yesterday that we have several times urged the government to bring system during Eid time. But they have fully failed to do anything to curb down sufferings of the passengers.
He, however, urged the government to take immediate steps to check extra fare anarchism and to check unfit transports running on the roads and waterways.
Our district correspondents report that there were miles-long gridlocks on Dhaka-Chittagong, Dhaka-Aricha, Dhaka-Tangail, Dhaka-Sylhet and some other inter-district routes mainly due to rush of huge transports and highways traffic’s mismanagement.
Passengers alleged that the mismanagements of the authority concerned had made the roads hells.
Moreover, slow toll collections also contributed to the gridlock, passengers alleged.
However, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Kader said the government is aware of the situation and trying to ensure safe journey to the passengers.
“We have instructed all concern to do their work accordingly. If anybody is found defaulter to their duties, we will take strict punitive measures against him,” he said.
