52% Eid holidaymakers return to Dhaka, telecom data shows
As of Friday, nearly 60 lakh have returned
More than half of the people who left Dhaka for Eid-ul-Fitr holidays have returned to the capital, according to data analysis by mobile operators.
As of Friday night (4 April), around 52% of holidaymakers were back in the city, while the remaining are expected to return by tomorrow, before offices and banks reopen.
Data from Bangladesh's four major telecom operators—Grameenphone, Robi, Banglalink, and Teletalk — revealed that over 1.14 crore mobile subscribers left Dhaka during the holiday period beginning on 28 March. By now, nearly 60 lakh have returned.
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Movement data shared by the Posts and Telecommunications Division showed that on Friday alone, more than 15 lakh people entered the capital, while approximately 7.42 lakh left.
The highest number of people left Dhaka on 30 March, the day before Eid, with 23.9 lakh mobile users recorded as departing the capital. Between 28 and 31 March, 77.5 lakh mobile users left Dhaka, while an additional 29.9 lakh departed between 1 and 3 April.
Faiz Ahmad Tayyab, special assistant to the senior adviser of the Ministry of Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology, shared the figures on his official Facebook account.
He noted that the statistics are based on mobile user data collected by the Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC).
However, he pointed out that these figures may not represent the actual number of individuals, as they exclude non-mobile users such as children and may double-count those with multiple SIMs.
As the extended Eid holidays come to an end on 5 April, the movement patterns highlight the mass scale of internal migration for festive celebrations in Bangladesh, with Dhaka once again bracing for the full return of its workforce.
