Bangladesh Jatri Kalyan Samiti has urged the government to extend the Eid holidays by two days for the ease of the holidaymakers.
The organisation’s secretary general Md Mozammel Haque Chowdhury came up with the call at a press conference held at Dhaka Reporters Unity (DRU) in the capital at 11:30am on Wednesday.
The organisation estimates that 1.6 crore people from Dhaka and surrounding districts will travel to different districts of the country this Eid.
In the four days before Eid, 30 lakh passengers can travel by bus-minibus, 4 lakh by train, 35 lakh by private car, jeep and microbus, 12 lakh by motorcycle, 60 lakh by launch, and about 1 lakh by airplane.
Due to the public transport crisis and overcharging during Eid, 18 lakh passengers may travel on the roofs of buses, trains and open trucks and freight transport. Apart from, about 4 to 5 crore passengers will travel inter-district.
Mozammel Haque said that the home-goers will suffer the most due to severe traffic jams in the capital during this year’s Eid trip.
He claimed that due to the extortion of some unscrupulous law enforcers and transport leaders, the traffic congestion at various points of the national highway is created.
He also demanded that all national highways should be free from extortion on the way during the Eid journeys.