With Eid-ul-Azha only two weeks away, advance sale of train and launch tickets will start from August 18 and August 20 respectively.

Bangladesh Railway will sell the tickets for August 27 on the first day, Rail Minister Mojibul Haque briefed the media at Rail Bhaban this afternoon.

Ticket sale will continue for five days until August 22 for tickets of sequencing days until August 31. The advance ticket sale for return tickets will begin August 25.

Seven pairs of special train services will be added for the purpose, which will start operation from four days before Eid and will continue till a week after.

Eid-ul-Azha, the second biggest religious festival for Muslims, is likely to be held on September 2.

Besides, private launch operators will start sale of advance tickets of launch cabins from August 20.

The decision was taken at a coordination meeting held today at Sadarghat Launch Terminal ahead of the Eid, Mobarak Hossain Majumdar, public relation officer of BIWTA, told The Daily Star.

The meeting was attended by the officials of Bangladesh Inland Water Transport Authority (BIWTA) and representatives of launch owners, workers' associations and law enforcement agencies with BIWTA Chairman M Mozammel Haque in the chair, he said.

Usually, 70-75 launches ply across 41 routes, mostly to the country's southern regions from Dhaka's Sadarghat. Some 130 more join the fleet to carry 8-10 lakh people who travel by waterways around Eid vacation, according to transport operators.

There are some 10,000 to 12,000 VIP, first and second class cabins in those launches, they said.