Nagpur: Coinciding with the visit of Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw to Nagpur, the Central Railway (CR) authorities took a momentous decision to open all the ticket booking counters at Nagpur Railway Station, on Friday.
For the travellers, it was a pleasant surprise as over the time they were just content with seeing only two such windows functioning. So, with the festive season having started, people making a beeline to book tickets off-line, the more number of booking windows operational would help cut down the ticket booking time.
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Welcoming the decision of opening all the ticket booking windows, Basant Shukla, Secretary, Bharatiya Yatri Kendra (BYK), said, they have been pointing out to the administration the need to increase the ticket booking windows from two earlier to at least three. This was so as only one such window was catering to digital and cash payment which led to a long queue of travellers at the station. Now that all five ticket booking windows are functioning, for the travellers it is a smooth booking experience. Hopefully, the system would continue round the year, added Shukla.
Earlier, only two such windows were operational on the Western side of Nagpur Railway Station leading to great inconvenience to those wishing to book tickets offline. The problem with payment using QR code is, in case of cancellation, the refund takes quite a long time. In case of cash payment, the clerical charges are cut and the rest of the refund is promptly returned to the traveller. Hence, more people prefer booking tickets offline.
However, in order to promote digital payment and hence railway officials kept with just two windows, wherein one was reserved for VIP and senior citizens. So for general citizens, only one window was left operational and digital payments took faster to complete than cash payment. Therefore, looking at the problem faced by the citizens, BYK had urged the Divisional Railway Manager (DRM) and Sr. Divisional Commercial Manager (Sr. DCM) to ensure additional windows are made functional to handle the rush, at least during the festival season.
Due ticket booking windows remaining non-functional, many times travellers miss trains as due to long queues by the time they reach the counter it was too late. Also, with only two windows functioning, the clerk manning the QR counter used to sit idle while huge rush is witnessed at the cash counter. This anomaly also was brought to the notice of the administration by CRMS and NRMU, the two registered unions of Railways, added Shukla. Now, it remains to be seen whether the exercise is temporary or permanent.
