Minister for road transport and bridges, railways and shipping Sheikh Rabiul Alam on Sunday claimed that the journey during the just passed Eid-ul-Fitr had been the most comfortable Eid journey ever.
‘I believe the Eid journey was smooth because 1.5 crore people left Dhaka in three days,’ he said and added that at the end of the holiday the same number of people returned to Dhaka in a safe and comfortable manner more than ever before.
Rabiul Alam, however, also mentioned that the nation was shocked over the two unexpected accidents, which the minister said the ‘only’ road accidents that happened during the Eid journey.
To establish order in the public transport sector a decision in principle was reached to install GPS trackers on all buses, he told a press briefing held at the Road Transport and Highways Division under the ministry at Bangladesh Secretariat in the capital on Sunday.
The briefing was followed by a meeting on the post-Eid follow-up and preparations for the forthcoming Eid-ul-Azha for preventing road crashes and increasing overall road safety.
At the briefing replying to a question, the minister disagreed with the statistics revealed by other organisations.
He mentioned that according to the Bangladesh Road Transport Authority and Roads and Highways Department, during Eid journey total 170 people were killed, including 47 on highways, 28 on waterways, and 17 on railways.
The rest of the deaths occurred on other types of roads across the country, he said.
He also mentioned that last year in the 11-day Eid holiday, 187 people were killed during their journey.
The minister, however, did not mention whether the number of deaths covered all that occurred in the crashes on roads, waterways and railways.
Meanwhile, according to a report of the control room, established by the Road Transport and Highways Division at BRTA headquarters for the recently passed Eid-ul-Fitr, between March 16 and March 26 total 170 people were killed and 323 others were injured in 138 road crashes across the country.
In 2025, during the Eid-ul-Fitr holidays, 187 people were killed and 313 more were injured in 260 road accidents, the same report read.
A report of Passenger Welfare Association of Bangladesh, a non-governmental organisation, revealed that at least 216 people were killed and 421 more were injured in road accidents across the country between March 14 and March 23.
According to the National Institute of Traumatology and Orthopaedic Rehabilitation data, total 1,621 road crash victims visited the facility from March 19 to March 23.
Replying to another question Rabiul Alam said that for accidents he did not want to blame anyone specifically.
Mentioning the recent ferry incident, in which a Sauhardya Paribahan bus plunged into the Padma River at Daulatdia ferry terminal, killing 26 people including the driver, the minister further stated that they had asked explanation from the owners of Sauhardya Paribahan company.
If their reply was not satisfactory, the government would cancel the registration and route permits of all its buses, the minister stated.
The government was taking initiatives to fix the fares of air-conditioned buses soon, he added.
Decisions were also taken at the meeting to off load the buses completely before getting on ferries, remove temporary bus counters from roads and kitchen markets from highways, make the U-turns safe on a priority basis, monitor movement of goods-laden vehicles strictly and some traffic-congestion prone spots.
Through the GPS tracking system on buses, officials concerned said that buses would easily monitored for speed, route violation, extra fare collection and fitness issue.
The meeting was attended, as special guests, state minister for the Road Transport and Highways Division and railways ministry Habibur Rashid, state minister for local government, rural development and cooperatives Mir Shahe Alam and Bangladesh Jatiyatabadi Sramik Dal chief coordinator and Pabna-5 lawmaker Shamsur Rahman Shimul Biswas.
