Suffering of Eid holidaymakers
Photo: Fahad Kaizer / Driknews
Journey during Eid festival has become another name of public sufferings. Though there is no accurate statistics but it is estimated that about 50 lakh people move out of the capital during Eid. So it is impossible to make the journey of this huge population smooth without proper plans. After facing a chaotic condition during one Eid, we expect that the government will plan for improving the situation and we would travel comfortably in the next Eid. But the reality is quite to the contrary. We have been observing that the government speaks a lot but actually does nothing in this regard. The country's transport service has grown mostly in the private sector. Unfortunately, public sector transport service has been held a hostage in the hands of some bad regulators, operators and law enforcers. According to an article published in this daily recently, around 1.5 lakh people travel to the southern districts every day from Sadarghat river port during the week prior to the Eid day. So, nearly 200 registered launches have to carry passengers with an increased number of trips during this time. The railway carries three lakh passengers from the capital to different destinations during three days ahead of the Eid day. But an unspecified number of aspiring passengers do not get the rail service. So it is clear that there are still ample avenues to increase capacities of water transports and railways and even public sector transport services. We firmly hope that the government will be sincere on this issue and plan on the basis of accurate statistics for easing public sufferings during this time.
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