Your chances of
securing confirmed train tickets on popular routes just went up. The Railways
has zeroed in on the biggest reason behind the perennial complaint of
passengers not being able to get confirmed tickets even after turning up at the
ticket counters at 8 am, when they open across India.
An internal
investigation revealed that every day, 4,000 confirmed berths would be hoarded
by touts within one minute of the computer reservation system being thrown open
to public.
The probe found that
the touts, who sell tickets at a higher price to passengers in need, were
exploiting a “facility” in the passenger reservation software. The facility
allows someone who has already purchased a ticket to alter journey details and
book another train within seconds at the last moment.
Touts would buy
tickets for relatively less popular trains a day earlier, and then swap them
for tickets on popular trains — Rajdhanis, Durontos and other long-distance
trains — between 8 am and 8.01 am. This would take seconds since their booking
details were already fed into the system.
“Touts would buy any
ticket a day in advance and the next day, they would get ticket details
changed. The booking clerk merely had to generate another PNR with the
passenger details already fed into the system a day earlier. This took
seconds,” Ajay Shukla, Member (Traffic), Railway Board, told The Indian
Express. “We have now disabled this facility for the first hour after the
system opens,” he added.
The probe, launched
after the Railways Ministry found a huge number of tickets being booked this
way, also indicated that booking clerks and other insiders were involved in the
racket. The ministry plans now plans to pinpoint the culprits and take action.
After disabling the
facility for the first hour, the Railway Board officials monitored the booking
pattern across the country for the past few days. Now, instead of 4,000
journey/train changes in the first minute, only a few such changes are made in
the course of the day. “We believe those are genuine transactions by passengers
altering their journeys,” Shukla said.
0 comments:
Post a Comment