The advance tickets of private sector buses and vessels plying the Dhaka-Barisal route during Eid celebrations have already been sold or reserved, while the government services are yet to fix their schedules.
The private service providers have decided to carry on especial Eid services from August 26 to September 4, said the authorities concerned.
Barisal District Launch Owners' Association vice-president Syedur Rahman Rintu, also owner of triple-deck ferry Sundarban, confirmed the advance tickets sale.
He also said that eleven triple-deck ferries would make single, double or triple trips a day on the route during the 10-day especial Eid services.
He said that the authorities concerned expected that they would get the highest number of passengers on August 28 and 29 and September 3 and 4.
About 13,728 out of 17,160 cabin tickets of ferries had already been booked or sold and rest 3,520 tickets were kept for Very Important Persons, he added.
The state-owned Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Corporation and Bangladesh Road Transport Corporation authorities said that though they did not finalise schedule for the 10-day especial Eid services, they had started selling advance tickets for the five days before and after Eid.
BIWTC deputy director Gopal Krishna Majumder confirmed that they had completed sale of advance tickets of ferries scheduled for up to August 25.
He said that the higher authorities could not prepare schedule for Eid trips due to acute shortage of vessels.
He said that at present three ferries — Ostrich, Mahsud and Turn — are on service and three other ferries — Leptha, Sena and Sonargaon — are under repair.
If BIWTC could complete the repair of three ferries they could launch special services.
He added that the fare for special services would not be raised.
The official said that the passengers would have to pay Tk 565 for a first class cabin seat, Tk 355 for second class cabin seat and Tk 95 for a deck seat.
He, however, said that this year the private-run ferries were charging Tk 800 for a first class one cabin seat, Tk 400-450 for a seat in a sofa and Tk 180-200 for a deck seat during the especial Eid services which were earlier Tk 600, Tk 300-350 and Tk 150.
Launch owners' association leaders, however, denied fare increase and said that they were just charging the fare that was rearranged by the government earlier.
As an example, he said, the government fixed price for a deck seat was Tk 205, and round the year the ferries were taking only Tk 150 and now they were charging Tk 200 which was Tk 5 less than the fixed price.
On the other hand, bus fares have also been raised in private-run buses.
The present price for a single trip ticket became Tk 450, which was earlier Tk 350.
The BRTC bus tickets price, however, remained the same at Tk 300.
BRTC Barisal depot manager Abdur Rahim said that BRTC had not decided to arrange Eid services and was under pressure of the private bus service providers not to expand BRTC service.
Source : New Age
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