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4 years ago

Trains struggle to find passengers after lockdown

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As Bangladesh began to unlock, rail services were allowed to resume after a two-month hiatus at 50 per cent seating capacity in an effort to maintain the safe distancing norms amid the coronavirus epidemic.

A month after restarting operations, trains are struggling to attract passengers with almost 70 per cent of seats going empty, according to some railway officials.

The number of empty seats has only increased in tandem with the uptick in coronavirus infections and deaths across the country, they said.

Under normal circumstances, the average daily passenger load exceeds 200,000 but the number has now dropped to about 17,000, reports bdnews24.com.

Currently, 17 pairs of trains are operating at half capacity. Almost 40 per cent of the available seats remain unfilled during scheduled trips.

In light of the current predicament, Railway Minister Nurul Islam Shujon has scrapped plans to increase the number of trains in the country.

"Railway passengers are constantly decreasing. While there were plans to raise the number of trains in July, that isn't possible now," Shujon told bdnews24.com on Monday.

The minister attributed the decline in passengers to the worsening coronavirus epidemic, which has inflicted losses of about Tk 3.0 billion on the railway sector, according to him.

Railway officials, however, warned that the losses will continue to grow amid the low passenger turnout. But they the trend can be reversed if ticket counters along with commuter trains and important stops such as the Airport Station are reopened.

"But it won't be possible to reduce the losses by taking these steps right now. Trains will continue to operate as they are currently," said Shujon.

He added that there are no plans to run new trains before Eid-ul-Azha.

Rail services restarted after a 66-day shutdown with eight pairs of trains hitting the tracks on May 31, rising to 11 pairs by Jun 3. But within 17 days of the restart, services on two routes were suspended by the authorities due a lack of passengers.

"Currently, 17 pairs of inter-city trains are in operation. At the beginning, the trains were running at full capacity but the response from passengers has since dwindled. On some days, trains on certain routes are filling all available seats while at other times, they are going mostly empty," said Md Mia Jahan, additional director general (operation) of Bangladesh Railway.

"In the last 15 days, about 60 to 70 per cent of tickets have been sold while the rest of the seats went empty," he added.

Due to the shortage of passengers, the 'Sonar Bangla' on the Dhaka-Chittagong route and the 'Upakul Express' on the Dhaka-Noakhali route have been suspended since June 20.

The novel coronavirus infection has sickened at least over 165,000 people in Bangladesh and left more than 2,000 people dead. The majority of the COVID-19 cases in the country, however, were detected between Jun 1 and July 1.

The railway authorities issued restrictions and warnings to cope with the pressure of passengers at the beginning of June. A month later, it appears that these steps have done little to allay the fears of passengers.

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