Surge in crowds headache for railways
The general coaches in regular trains will start from June-end; although they are available in summer special trains
It is becoming difficult for the railways to handle the surging passenger traffic inside long-distance trains. Wait-listed tickets are running in the hundreds and people are travelling in jampacked sleeper coaches, which has become the new general compartment. This is the situation despite Central and Western Railways (CR, WR) operating over 1,000 summer special trains over the last couple of months to clear extra rush going to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan, among other states.
The general coaches in regular trains will start from June-end, although they are available in summer special trains. Despite the CR operating 638 specials and the WR running 440 summer trains, people continue to spend a lot of time waiting in queues to buy a confirmed ticket. The CR, meanwhile, is planning to add 12 more specials.
“The wait-listed tatkal ticket started reflecting within 30 seconds of booking. I was waiting for two days, yet could not get a confirmed ticket,” said Tabarak Hussain, who wanted to go to Gorakhpur.
The terminuses of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Kurla Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Bandra and Mumbai Central are filled with passengers who have wait-listed tickets. Sources in the railways said that people are buying tatkal tickets for two members and the rest of them travel with wait-listed tickets.
A senior railway official said, “When checked by the ticket checking staff, these families are ready to pay fines and request for permission to travel with family members who have received confirmed tickets.” A regular sleeper coach has 72 seats, though well over 100150 passengers are travelling with or without valid tickets.
As per WR officials, they are conducting regular ticket checking drives to curb unauthorised travelling, even though passengers claim that they are denied due booking as touts book tickets in a matter of seconds. With intensive checking drives conducted by 2,100-strong ticket checking staff of the WR, the authorities recovered Rs 21.82 crore for irregular travel from 3.1 lakh cases of ticketless and irregular travel.
In April, 54 intensive checks were also conducted against touts and other antisocial elements. As a result, 217 persons were apprehended and prosecuted under various sections of the Railways Act 1989 and Rs 24,800 was recovered from them as court fines.