Bangladesh: BR starts selling advance train tickets for Eid on July 20

Dhaka, July 7, 2014 (New Age): Bangladesh Railway will sell 18,000 advance train tickets each day from July 20 to July 24 to facilitate travel by Eid time home goers, railways minister Mohammad Mazibul Hoque. BR will start selling advance return tickets from July 27 to July 31, the minister told a news conference at Rail Bhaban. The tickets for home bound passengers would be sold at the Kamalapur Railway Station. The tickets for the return journeys to the capital would be sold at outlying railway stations. All the advance tickets would be sold from 9 AM to 5 PM, said the minister. The minister said that 25 per cent of the advance tickets would be sold online and five per cent would be reserved for the VIPS and BR employees. On July 20 advance train tickets will be sold for the train journeys on July 24, said the minister. On July 21, advance tickets would be sold for July 25, on July 22 for July 26, on July 23 for July 27 and on July 24 for July 28. On July 27 the advance tickets would be sold for the return journeys on July 31, on July 28 for August 1, on July 29 for August 2, on July 30 for August 3 and on July 31 for August 4, said the minister. The minister said that a maximum of four advance tickets would be sold to each passenger to prevent black marketing. BR would press 166 additional coaches and 15 additional locomotives into service to carry Eid time passengers, said the minister. BR director general Mohammad Tafazzal Hossain said that the additional coaches would be added to 10 trains that would start running three days before Eid and the service would continue seven days after the Eid. He said that the trains would run on Dhaka-Mohonganj, Dhaka-Parbatipur, Dhaka-Khulna and Chittagong-Chandpur routes to carry the extra rush of passengers during the festival. Besides the police force and the Rapid Action Battalion, Government Railway Police and Railway Nirapatta Bahini would be deployed to check black marketing of the advance train tickets and ticketless travel. The Eid vacations of all BR officers and employees have been cancelled, said the railways minister. Railways ministry secretary Abul Kalam Azad and senior Dhaka Metropolitan Police officials were present.