Travel syndicates and influential people grab it all even though the date of starting sale is yet to be fixed
South-bound people going home for Eid holidays will be facing a serious scarcity of launch tickets as all the tickets have already been sold out long before they have been made available at ticket counters.
Sources say an illegal travel syndicate has taken hold of a portion of the tickets, which they will re-sell later at a premium, while the rest has been acquired by top government officials and relatives of lawmakers.
At Sadarghat launch terminal, supervisors of vessels like Suravi, Kirtankhola, Aanchal, Agradut Plus and Parabat, taking the Dhaka-Barisal-Bandaria route, yesterday told the Dhaka Tribune all advance cabin tickets had been sold out a couple of days earlier.
Mahbub Uddin Ahmed, chairman of Bangladesh Inland Waterways (passenger carriers) Association (BIWA), said: “Although tickets were officially to be sold a week before Eid, it does not mean we cannot decide to do it before the schedule. The sooner the sales end, the better it is for us.”
“We have nothing to do about sale of advance tickets as almost all the tickets have boon booked by government high-ups and relatives of parliamentarians,” he added.
BIWA Vice-Chairman Shahab Uddin Milon said scalping cabin tickets would be difficult as there are only 2,500 cabins in launches, but the demand is for 10,000 seats before Eid.
Most of the cabins are usually booked at least two months in advance, he said.
Saiful Haque Khan, joint director of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority, said: “Selling tickets actually depend on launch owners, but a meeting with them was scheduled for July 16 and they were not supposed to sell tickets before that.
“If we receive any complaint that the schedule has been violated, we will take action,” he added.
BIWTA Chairman Shamsuddoha Khandaker, however, said they had nothing to do if any launch owner sold tickets prior to the scheduled July 16 meeting.
“We will take decision on steamer tickets at the meeting,” he added.
BIWTA and BIWA have arranged to launch a 10-day special steamer service before five days of Eid to handle the passenger rush. Around 30 lakh passengers are expected to leave the capital by launch this year and a total of 115 launches would carry the home-bound people.
The BIWA chairman said additional launches are ready to carry passengers.
“Those vessels will be in operation if passenger demand is high enough. It will be a bit difficult to ensure smooth travel experience under such conditions but we will try our best. Hopefully, the passengers will enjoy a hassle-free journey this year,” he added.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
