Home for the holidays

Eid ul-Fitr is almost here and the demand for various services (from transport to retail) are higher than ever in the country.

Although service providers try to increase their capacity, they often end up making compromises on the actual quality of service. The quality declines almost immediately, causing unavoidable suffering to hundreds and thousands of people.

The worst case scenario we can see is in the transportation sector.

As it is a common practice of the people in our country to visit their hometown and celebrate the special day with their family — the demand for transportation services increase significantly in this particular period of the year.

You may have noticed that many people have started leaving Dhaka early just to avoid the rush — no one wants to spend hours standing in a queue to get a ticket and then wait in traffic congestion on the highway, finally reaching their destination exhausted and fatigued.

Given that we, the working people, only get a few days (3-5 days) of holiday during Eid, this is often quite an unfortunate state of affairs.

Every transportation system — whether the bus, train, or launch — is overloaded with people during the Eid holidays, and maintaining the immense demand with good quality service is always a challenge for our service providers.

As a result, people face numerous hurdles on their journeys.

Every year, many accidents occur during this time because of the haphazard way these services are maintained, not to mention the unruly behaviour of most people. It’s almost as if they have abandoned any will to stay safe — prioritizing the need to leave town as quickly as possible.

The government has taken certain initiatives understanding this serious problem. Although we have already witnessed some changes in our transportation services, this is not enough.

In addition to the government, the private sector should also come up with solutions to reduce the suffering of the people. More importantly, people need to start prioritizing their safety over everything else.

This suffering of the home-going people needs to end, and only a holistic approach from the government, the people, and service providers can make it happen.

Ashfat Bin Islam is a freelance contributor.