Nothing to do if people queue up hours earlier for tickets: Railway Minister

Railways Minister Nurul Islam Sujan said the authorities have nothing to do with the long queues at railway stations if people gather at the distribution points one day before advance ticket sales.

"If people start queuing today to buy advance tickets for tomorrow, I don't see what can be done about it," he said during a visit to Kamalapur Railway Station on Monday afternoon.

"There aren't any complaints about today's tickets because we have devised a system that eliminates the possibility of fraud. You have to show your identity card to buy a ticket."

Replying to allegations that railway officials were involved in black-market sales, the minister said: "How would they sell on the black market. If I can't use your ticket, why would I buy it from you? If a person wants to buy four tickets they've to submit the identification documents for four people."

Earlier, people suffered on the first two days of advance train ticket sales as train tickets for 27 and  28 April were sold out in a ridiculously short time.

Ticket-seekers claimed that only a handful out of thousands standing for agonisingly long hours in the queue managed to receive the golden prize.

They also alleged the concerned authorities are indulging in corruption - insinuating that the authorities are stocking train tickets to sell them in the black market.

Besides, the situation is unpleasant online too as 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 problems while trying to buy tickets on Shohoz.

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 tickets online, many of them rushed to the Kamalapur railway station hoping to buy tickets from the 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.

Shohoz said that their website is struggling to keep pace with a huge number of ticket seekers.

Around 18 lakh people have hit Shohoz.com online in just the first minute of the third day(Monday) of selling advance train tickets.

Farhat Ahmed, public relations manager of Shohoz, the country's largest online ticket seller, shared the information Monday (25 April) and said this is the highest number of hits so far in a day.

He also noted that some five lakh holidaymakers hit the servers on the first day on the first minute and 10 lakh hit the second day for purchasing tickets of advanced sales.