337 headphones stolen from Tejas, Rlys to provide cheaper ones now

A total of 337 headphones distributed to passengers for the entertainment systems onboard the Mumbai-Goa Tejas Express were stolen in just four round trips after it debuted last Monday, a railway source said.

For its fifth trip on Saturday from CST, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) provided low-cost headphones. The IRCTC spokesperson did not confirm the number of missing headphones, but said that it had bought 1,000 headphones, each costing ₹30.

The Indian Railway had introduced the systems to provide a flight-like travel experience for passengers. The train has 990 seats across 13 passenger coaches, including an executive coach that has more comfortable seats with neck and leg rests.

The system has preloaded games, movies and songs, besides FM channels. For the first four trips, headphones of a leading brand were handed over to passengers before the start of the journey.

However, after the first trip itself, the train came back with fewer headphones, damaged infotainment screens and waste strewn all over. The cost of each headphone was around ₹200. The new ones will cost ₹30 each, a source said.

“Many passengers do not return the headphones before alighting and take those with them thinking that its cost was included in their ticket fare,”said an attendant on the train.

He said the on-board staff are now afraid that IRCTC might recover the cost of missing headphones from their salary.