Acute ticket crisis at Gabtoli, buses charge ‘double fare’

The sufferings of home-bound people have peaked at Gabtoli bus terminal in Dhaka as there are no tickets for long-haul buses while the local ones are charging double fare.

During a visit to Gabtoli in the afternoon, it was seen that tickets of a Naogaon-bound BRTC bus were being sold from the counter of Shyamoli Paribahan. Staff of the bus company said they do not have any tickets to sell until the day before Eid.

Rahad Hossain, who works in a government office, came to the terminal to go to Naogaon and vented anger over the situation, alleging that the Shyamoli Paribahan booth is selling BRTC tickets at double price.

“A ticket of non-AC bus is selling for Tk 1,100, though the actual fare from Dhaka to Naogaon is Tk 580. I did not buy the ticket. I will wait and see,” he told Prothom Alo.

Asked about collecting double fare, Shyamoli Paribahan counter master Shawkat Ali Babu said, “We do not have any tickets of Shyamoli Paribahan. We have reserved some buses and are operating those. BRTC took extra money from us for the bus reservation and this is why we are charging extra fare.”

A man was selling AC bus tickets, sitting at the counter of Rekha Enterprise. He was demanding Tk 2,200 for each Dhaka-Rangpur ticket.

Asked about the reason for the extra fare, he, wishing to be unnamed, told Prothom Alo that the high operational cost during Eid prompted him to charge extra.

Animesh Roy and Dubar Basu, who came to Dhaka on Tuesday for some family work, went to the bus terminal to return home to Satkhira.

They spent Tk 1800 in total while traveling to Dhaka on a Tungipara Express coach, via the Padma Bridge.

They went to Gulistan bus terminal on Wednesday night but failed to avail any bus ticket for Satkhira. Later, they went to Shyamoli on Thursday where Tk 2,000 was demanded from them from an AC-bus ticket.

Having failed to afford the costly ticket, they turned to Gabtoli bus terminal at noon, but the scenario was almost similar here. They managed two tickets of non-AC SD Paribahan at Tk 1,000 each after hours of hectic efforts.

Fakhrul Islam, executive magistrate of Bangladesh Road Transport Authority (BRTA), said they are taking action against the buses that are charging extra fare.

For collecting extra fare, some 10 buses were fined Tk 40,000 until Thursday noon, he added.