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Homebound people are already heavily crowding different bus counters of the city to celebrate the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr with their near and dear ones.
They have started thronging different bus counters at Gabtali, Mohakhali and Sayedabad for collecting tickets well in advance. After fasting for one month, the Muslims will celebrate the Eid festival.
Every year home-bound passengers face tremendous hassles in managing tickets of long-distance passenger vehicles including buses, trains, launches and so on as a section of unscrupulous transport operators regularly take advantage of their helplessness by irrationally increasing the fares.
To earn some quick cash through selling tickets, they usually resort to black marketing of travel tickets, creating an artificial crisis of the same.
As people are often bound to go home to celebrate the festival with near and dear ones after an expected period of time, they become compelled to pay more.
On one hand, this vested quarter overcharges passengers in the sale of tickets, on the other hand, they make passengers face hassles.
This year, long queue has become visible as most passengers are not willing to go through the last-minute peril. Recently, the transport owners and operators have increased fares afresh against the backdrop of the increase in fuel prices. Now, the fare is Tk 0.83 per kilometre for a 52-seater bus. The fare is a little bit more in case of 40-seater buses.
Before the increase of fuel prices, the fare of normal buses from Gabtali to Khulna was Tk 180 but soon after the hike it has become Tk 250. In case of 'chair coach' normal bus fare from Dhaka to Khulna was Tk 260, but now it has been increased to Tk 350.
The fare from Dhaka to Chittagong for chair coach was Tk 190 but now it is Tk 230. Bus fares have increased depending on the distance and quality of services as well.
Advance ticket sale is a common phenomenon as people would like to avoid unnecessary hassles. This year, sale of advance tickets for chair coaches have already started but for normal buses those are still unavailable.
A source in the transportation sources said, "To remove unnecessary hassles faced by passengers this year, we will take precautionary measures. In no way, no one will be able to take advantage of the plight of passengers by selling ticket at exorbitant prices."
After the deployment of Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) and police forces at different counters passenger hassles including dragging luggage away from passengers and forcing them to buy ticket from specific service providers have been greatly removed, said the sources.
About the possibility of further increase of bus fare during Eid festival, one individual engaged in ticket sales said, "Now the fare is beyond the reach of normal people. Further increase will push people against the wall."
About the fare for normal buses, there is problem of distance and per kilometre charge.
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