Mismanagement in online train ticket sale continues

Mismanagement in the sale of advance train tickets online continued for the third consecutive day on Friday in the capital. 
Huge numbers of people stayed overnight at Kamalapur, Tejgaon, Banani and Airport railway stations and Phulbaria in the capital to buy tickets for journeys on June 2. 
The Bangladesh Railway on Wednesday started selling advance tickets ahead of the Eid-ul-Fitr festival in the capital and at Chattogram railway station between 9:00am and 4:00pm.
On both Wednesday and Thursday, numerous users suffered while trying to buy tickets online as they failed to enter the railway’s newly launched mobile app ‘Rail Sheba’. 
This year the railway has announced that it will sell 50 per cent of the advance tickets online. 
On Friday, many users failed like the previous day to access the app while those who could did not get the expected services either. Some found that all tickets were shown to be sold out. 
‘I logged on the app before 9:00am but found that by around 9:10am all tickets for the air conditioned seats on the Dhaka-Jashore route were sold out,’ said Mahmudul Hasan, a Dhaka resident. 
He was puzzled as to how it was possible that all the AC tickets were sold out within such a short time. 
Some users, however, said that they were able to buy tickets of non-AC seats after trying several times. 
Earlier, officials of the CNS Limited, the firm that has been appointed by the railway for managing the sale of tickets online, told New Age that around one lakh users had hit simultaneously for tickets while only a very few people were lucky enough to get the tickets. 
At Kamalapur and Airport stations many passengers were seen to collect advance tickets of all intercity trains on west routes via Jamuna Bridge and on Chattogram and Noakhali routes respectively.
Some people alleged that the railway staffers were taking too much time to register the names of first-time passengers. They also complained that a small number of tickets were made available at the ticket counters, especially the AC tickets. 
On Friday noon, people were seen gathering at the Kamalapur station to collect advance tickets for journeys on June 3, which would be sold today (Saturday).
As decided by the railway, people went to Tejgaon station for collecting tickets of trains on Mymensingh and Jamalpur routes, to Banani station for tickets of Netrokona-bound Mohanganj Express and Haor Express and to Phulbaria for tickets of Sylhet and Kishoreganj.
The railway is scheduled to sell a total of 25,571 advance tickets for 33 intercity trains each day till May 26 from the capital while one half of these tickets are to be sold at the designated station counters while the other half tickets through the app Rail Sheba, website E Sheba and mobile SMS services.

News Courtesy: www.newagebd.net