Where have all the online tickets gone?

Many people wishing to go to their ancestral villages by train to celebrate the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr with near and dear ones are facing severe problem while trying to buy tickets online.

After trying for hours to get access to the online ticket selling website at the time when tickets were supposed to be sold, some found the server down while some were told that all tickets have already been sold out.

Failing to buy ticket online, many of them rushed to the Kamalapur railway station hoping to buy the tickets from counter. But they were fated for another phase of sufferings and refusals at the station also as after standing in queue for hours, hundreds of ticket seekers were again informed that all the tickets have been sold out.

Borhan Uddin, a private job holder, started trying to enter the website of Sohoj, the online ticket provider of Bangladesh Railway, from 7:50am on 24 April to buy advance tickets for 28 April. Online selling of tickets was scheduled to start at 8:00am, but he did not get access to the site even after trying continuously for long two hours.
Finally, he got the access to the site at 10:00am but did not get the ticket, because, meanwhile, all the tickets of 28 April been sold out by that time.

Borhan Uddin said, "I submitted my application providing all required information including the destination. For some time, the website showed the 'processing' status. After that, the server was shown down. I waited from 8am to 10am. Although I finally got access, I saw that there was no ticket. Where have all the tickets gone?"

Md Habibur Rahman was seen standing in a long queue at Kamalapur railway station at 11am on Sunday. "I tried to buy ticket online throughout the whole day on Saturday, but did not get access to the website even for once. So, I was forced to come to the station in the evening. I have been waiting, standing in line since yesterday (Saturday) evening, to buy the ticket from the counter."

Saifuddin, another person, standing in queue at the station, told The Business Standard that he succeeded buying the ticket online after trying for a long time. But, after a while, it was canceled. He contacted the ticket selling platform Sohoj and was informed that the ticket was cancelled due to payment gateway problem.

Contacted, Sohoj Manager Farhad Ahmed said, "Since the starting of ticket-selling at 8am today, 1o lakh people have hit the web every minute. But we have only 13,500 tickets for sale. As a result, the tickets were sold out within a few seconds. No one got any ticket after that."

Denying the server down allegation, he said, "Our server has never been down since Saturday, because we now use the 'Q' management system."

Responding to a query over payment gateway, the Sohoj manager said, "It often happens so that the gateways take the payment of tickets, but delays to send it to us. As a result, the ticket gets canceled. We have no fault in this regard."
He, however, claimed that a letter has been sent to the payment gateway authorities to resolve the issue as soon as possible. Hopefully this problem will not exist anymore, he said.

Counter tickets run out in 2.5 hours

The Kamalapur railway station turned into a sea of ​​people with the presence of ticket seekers on Sunday, crowding to buy advance ticket for 28 April from the counter. Ticket sales started from 8am, but people started thronging the station from the night before. All the tickets were sold out in just 2.5 hours, depriving hundreds of passengers of their desired ticket. 

Many of those who did not get tickets demanded tickets for the next day (29 April), saying they would not return without tickets.

One of them, Kamrul Hasan, said, "Even after standing in queue for more than 12 hours, I did not get the ticket for 28 April.
I will stay here and not return without a ticket."

Md Ujjwal, another ticket-seeker, said, "I have been here since last night. I did not get the ticket today. We are demanding the next day's ticket, but no one is listening to us. Every year we face this kind of harassment. There is no one to address our suffering."

After 12pm, people became restless and started chanting slogans demanding tickets. Authorities later calmed them down with a serial token for buying tickets the next day.

Women suffer extremely for advance tickets

A good number of women also gathered at Kamalapur railway station for advance tickets. Out of 23 counters at the station, only two counters were selling tickets for women. However, women ticket seekers faced untold sufferings, standing in line for hour after hour, due to this inadequate number of counters. Standing close to each other, they were suffocating in the sweltering heat. Some of them fell ill due to the unbearable heat.

Meanwhile, some women were entering into the line all of a sudden due to mismanagement, triggering heated altercations and clashes between women.

Sumi Akhter, a housewife from Mohammadpur area in the capital, said, "I came at 4am and standing in queue since then. This is 12pm now, and I still have not got a ticket. Meanwhile, we are suffering a lot as there are only two counters dedicated for women ticket seekers. Moreover, on-duty clerics at the counter take a long time to give each ticket."

"There is no discipline in the line. Whoever wants is entering into the line out of the blue. As a result, the line is not shortening and we are not getting the desired tickets. I doubt whether I would get the ticket at all today," she added frustratedly.