Online train tickets: Why don’t we develop our own system?
One of the promises of the present government was to take civic service to the doorsteps of the people. To that end, the government has given importance to building a digital Bangladesh. People will be able to meet their various needs sitting at home; will be able to meet many wants. But the whole thing comes to a head when there is a lack of sustainable management, as we saw in the case of online train ticket sales.
Passengers were subjected to extreme hardship in the last one week while trying to sell tickets online by contractor. This is due to irregularities and technical complications. There has been no institutional structure for the sale of railway tickets by government agencies in past three decades that resulted in this situation.
According to the report of Prothom Alo, computer printed tickets are sold through online, mobile app and counter at 77 stations of the country. An organisation called CNS BD has been selling tickets online since 2007. In the middle of last month, another company called Sohoj.com was assigned for that work. Online, mobile app and computer-printed tickets were closed for six days to facilitate the transfer of new responsibilities.
Last Saturday, the railway authorities published the address of a website for the purpose of launching online ticket sales. Passengers suffered when the website went down shortly after the start of ticket sales that morning. Although ticket sale was still running on the app till 19 March, it also got closed. In this situation, thousands of people crowded the big stations including Kamalapur, airport, Chattogram stations to buy tickets.
However, Sohoj.com said the previous contractors did not handover the technical operation system of ticket selling to them. When additional customers hit or visit the website it created trouble. Many of which have been from abroad. They also think that there may have been a cyber-attack. The threat of cyber-attacks is certainly serious.
However, the people concerned say that they are saying this to cover their own failures. They cannot avoid liability for this. According to railway authorities, the previous app was owned by CNS. Initiatives have been taken to create new apps. The whole issue was gravely criticised on social media.
Railway authorities are paying a portion of the proceeds of tickets sold to the public to the contractor. But we know from the relevant sources of the railways that the railways have never paid attention to the system of ticket sales and how to reduce the suffering of the customers. Prothom Alo correspondent says that the railways have no capacity to sell tickets online. They do not have any manpower with technical skills for this. The whole thing depends on the contractors.
The railway sector is one of the few sectors in which the government has paid more attention for development. One after another big project has been taken. The quality of service has not increased in accordance rather in many cases the suffering has increased. The price of tickets also increased over the years. But the railway authorities could not create its own system for online ticket. This is utterly unfortunate. Online facilities were supposed to be available in all the stations across the country, but it did not happen. This complication with the ticket will not end unless the dependence on the contractor is eliminated. When will the railway authorities realise this?