With Eid approaching, city residents left Dhaka Saturday for their ancestral homes to celebrate the festival with their near and dear ones.
Bus terminals, railway stations and the river port witnessed a huge rush of homebound passengers.
The train service at the Kamalapur Railway Station suffered heavy delays on the day.
The delay in train departure caused inconveniences and sufferings to the passengers.
Of 17 trains, the schedule of at least four could not be maintained.
Four intercity trains-Chilahati-bound Nilsagar Express, Rangpur Express, Chattogram-bound Prabhati Express and Khulna-bound Sundarban Express-departed station behind the schedule.
Kamalapur Railway Station manager Aminul Haque acknowledged the delay, saying a total of 17 trains left the station until 10:30am, but the departure of four got delayed.
Khulna-bound Sundarban Express left the station at 8.20 am instead of 7.19 am on the day.
Chattogram-bound Mahanagar Prabhati Express was half an hour late to start from Kamalapur.
He said Rangpur Express train suffered initial delay due to a storm and later there was a technical glitch in one of its bogies.
Neelsagar Express departed from the Kamalapur Railway Station around 11am instead of 8am, causing sufferings to its passengers.
Rangpur Express, which left the station at 10:15am, was delayed by an hour.
A special train was arranged for the passengers as the regular Rangpur Express could not reach the station on schedule.
Reasons for the delay of other three trains were not known yet.
The passengers of the trains complained of sufferings as they had difficulty to find out their seats mentioned in the tickets.
"I've booked an AC compartment but cannot find my seat now. Officials on the train could not resolve the matter," Md Moniruzzaman, a private service holder, told the FE.
Passengers were aggrieved that the problem of train management, including maintaining schedules, would never be fixed in Bangladesh.
"I haven't got any seat. My wife is accompanying me. Only Allah knows how I'll travel. I told the station manager but it was of no use," passenger Abul Kalam told the FE.
"We'll run 52 trains throughout the day. So far, 17 trains, including inter-district and mail trains, have left the station," said railway official Mr Haque.
"Four among the 17 trains have been delayed," he said.
The station manager, however, admitted there has been mismanagement in the distribution of seats.
The bus terminals at Sayedabad, Mohakhali and Gabtoli also witnessed a huge crowd of passengers.
Passengers of different bus routes told the FE that they had suffered a lot due to the schedule disruption of buses caused by traffic jams on the highways and in the capital.
Meanwhile, homebound passengers rushed to the Dhaka River Port Terminal in the city to reach their respective destinations for celebrating the upcoming Eid-ul-Fitr.
Visiting Sadargaht River Port Terminal, the FE correspondent found that launches were departing the terminal on time.
Most of the launches departed the terminal on time, according to BIWTA officials.
A total of 50 launches left Sadarghat for various destinations until 6:00 pm.
The Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) commissioned special launch services on different routes on the occasion of Eid, officials said.
The BIWTA, in its 12-day long special service programme on 37 different routes, will facilitate homebound passengers to travel safely to their respective village homes for celebrating the biggest religious festival.
Director of BIWTA Shafiqul Islam told the FE that a total of 210 launches, including Gazi, Nepcha, Bengali will carry over six to seven million passengers until June 12 on 37 river routes.
The routes that the state inland water transport agency offers services are Dhaka-Barishal, Dhaka- Bhola, Dhaka- Patuakhali, Dhaka-Chandpur, Dhaka- Muladi, Barguna -Barguna, Dhaka-Pirojpur, Dhaka-Gournadi, Dhaka- Rayenda, Dhaka-Shariatpur, Dhaka-Madaripur and Dhaka- Torki, Dhaka- Hizla and Dhaka-Hatiya.
Joint director (River Port) of BIWTA at Sadarghat AKM Arif Uddin told reporters the BIWTA has taken different measures to ensure safe journey of holidaymakers, he said.
He said the law enforcement agencies will remain vigil at Dhaka, Chandpur and Barishal launch terminals to check overloading of launches, said Mr Islam.
He said the BIWTA has issued an instruction to stop movement of all goods carrying vessels and cargoes at night to ensure safety of passenger-carrying launches, he added.
Rezaul Karim Bhuiyan, officer-in-charge of Sadarghat river police, said eight teams of Rapid Action Battalion and police have been working relentlessly to ensure passengers' safety.
talhabinhabib@yahoo.com
