The Perennial Eid Woes in Bangladesh

The Perennial Eid Woes

Attaining transport tickets every year during both Eid festivals is of Great Expectation and then Great Frustration as well due to the non-availability. and what starts as a general quest to congregate with family at home, transforms in to a drama and often, melodrama. Writes Faizul Khan Tanim
Photos: Focus Bangla

The spirit of Eid festivals start with acquiring the transport tickets and very often ends with grave tragedy. Jhuki’r cheye jibon er mullo onek beshi (The value of living is much more than taking risk) – this much-ignored popular saying probably sports and is tattooed in almost all bus, train, ferry and flight counters all over the country. But the signposts with these words are most often broken, in shabby conditions with a mix of betel nut leaf chewing extract and crow excrement on them or plain and simple disregarded since the mad home-goers will not stop at anything to go to their home states and enjoy Eid festival. But the question remains – if the vehicles and ferries are overloaded with possibilities of breakdown, especially in long routes, how safe is it to commute on them with the very delicate babies and children or elderly and frail companions?

In addition, every year, these desperate passengers and ticket seekers rush for tickets at the last moment due to Bangladesh wage disburse structure, counting premium fare for economy classes, and are subject to a never-ending story of abuses and harassment by black marketers.

Not only this extortion by middlemen and ticket scalpers but statistics say that the rate of accidents increases with mounting number of deaths during Eid than any other time.

According to a Road Safety Ambassador from Bangladesh at the International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP), a registered charity dedicated to preventing more than 3,500 road deaths that occur every day worldwide, Prof. Dr. Md. Mazharul Hoque, department of Civil Engineering and the founder member of accident research institute (ARI) of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) said, “The number of accidents and road fatalities increases during Eid holidays and moreover, it is increasing every year. I did a research/survey from 2003 to 2007 where there were 52 numbers of accidents and 93 numbers of fatalities during Eid-Ul-Fitr of 2003. By Eid-Ul-Azha of 2007, it followed an increasing trend with the numbers of accidents at 83 and fatalities at 172 and I believe this increase did not stop since our population did not whereas the numbers of transport services might have slightly increased”.

“Quite frankly, fatalities will not stop until our transport sector stops over speeding, using unstable and unfit vehicles on road, overloading with passengers and their luggage to mention a few and we must remember that it is not necessarily the driver’s fault always. Time has come to develop a central committed organization with strict law enforcement and renewed road infrastructure”.

Another senior professor of urban planning department of a renowned university, requesting anonymity, said, “I was appalled by the behaviour of a traffic sergeant of the police force when I raised the topic of increased road accidents and traffic jam during Ramadan near Jatrabari of the city and even after disclosing my identity, he said – Oi beta, eishob professor bohut dekhsi, apnera ki bujhen? Beshi kotha na boila gari te gea boshen ar disturb korben na (we’ve seen a lot of professors like you, what do you understand? Don’t talk much and just go seat in your car and don’t disturb me). If the reaction of a member of the law enforcement agency towards a citizen let alone a university professor is this, how can develop as a nation?”   

Speaking to a groggy and almost dead tired, Dinajpur bound ticket seeker Abdullah Mamoon at 7:00 am from a Mirpur bus counter, “I’ve been standing in the line since sehri (the early morning meal eaten before a whole day of fasting) and not a single ticket. We have 12 family members including my old mother, three children including a new-born. And we have to do this Eid at our home district because my father and rest of the family expect us particularly because this is the first festival after our 6-month infant Afia is born. If I do not get direct tickets, then multiple stopover bus services will have to do. Risky? Yes it is when you have a baby companion but our sentiments are more important than life jeopardy when it comes to celebrating the spirit of Eid-Ul-Fitr”.

“This problem may not have arisen If there were optimum buses, and in this case, increased number of vehicles in this route just for Eid or if we got our salary on time to have booked the tickets early. While in the line, a ticket scalper came to my rescue but only to increase my pain, quoted a price Taka 1500 per ticket than the original price Taka 600, per person”, Mamoon added in deep dismay.

Speaking to the head office of a famous bus company Shohagh Paribahan Pvt. Ltd., the assistant manager of Sales Abul Bashar Khan said, “The reason we at Shohagh do not face any problem is because of our transparency. Our entire ticketing system is online throughout the country and therefore the fact of issuing a single ticket twice or thrice is not in our dictionary. Moreover, if the owners are respectable of law and towards people, these discrepancies will not occur”.

Khan added more that, “To curb the ticket black marketers, every bus counter may keep notes – we must identify a person using full name, address and even national ID so that no one person can buy more than five or six tickets and we must keep track of the names to see if there’s repetition, otherwise this phenomenon will continue”.

Hoque added more that in order to improve the situation, we need a massive revamp of our mentality. ‘Mobility’ and ‘safety’ are parallel issues and should be addressed separately since with the increase of mobility or speed of vehicles, safety will always be a priority issue and that should be taken care of. While Hoque said that, a retired government servant Azharul Amin said, “There are three senses which should be present in the citizens of a country in order to call a nation ‘Developed’ – civic sense, traffic sense and common sense and sadly we lack in all three”.

*This article was first published in The Independent's Weekend Magazine August 17 2012 - http://www.theindependentdigital.com/index.php?opt=view&page=32&date=2012-08-17