ENTRY FOR ONLY TICKETED PASSENGERS

ENTRY FOR ONLY TICKETED PASSENGERS

23-AUG-ENG 1

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

DELHI-------------------------A new trial will start soon at New Delhi Railway Station. Its purpose is to reduce the crowd of passengers in unreserved coaches. The Railway Board wants that only ticketed passengers should enter inside the station. This trial will run for a month amid security. If successful, it will be adopted in the whole country.

An accident took place at New Delhi Railway Station in February this year. Since then, many steps are being taken to reduce the crowd. A new trial is going to start soon at New Delhi Railway Station. Its purpose is to reduce the crowd of passengers in unreserved coaches of the train. The Railway Board wants that only ticketed passengers should come inside the station. This trial will run for a month amid security. This will tell how crowded the station is and what arrangements will have to be made for the upcoming festivals. If successful, it will be adopted across the country.

Railways is going to conduct another trial to reduce crowd in unreserved coaches at New Delhi Railway Station. In this trial, only ticketed passengers will be allowed inside the station. This trial will run for a month. This will help the railways to estimate the crowd and prepare for the festivals. Earlier also an accident has happened due to crowd at the station. After this, the railways have taken this step.

Railway Board had also conducted a trial earlier. In this, only 150 tickets were being issued for every unreserved coach. A system was made in the railway's software CRIS that after 150 tickets are issued, tickets will stop being made. This trial ran for about two months and was successful.

Shivendra Shukla, Executive Director of Railway Board has written a letter to the General Manager of Northern Railway. He has said that the trial should be taken to the next stage. Now only limited ticket holders issued from the counters at New Delhi Railway Station will be allowed to enter the station.

So far there is no rule regarding issuing tickets in unreserved coaches. Passengers also make unreserved tickets themselves from the railway station counter and app. There is no limit on their number. Therefore unreserved tickets keep selling continuously. Many times 300 to 400 passengers travel in a coach. Whereas there are only about 80 seats in a coach. Officials believe that this will help a lot in improving the system at the railway station during festivals.

According to the trial being conducted by the Railways, only 150 tickets will be issued in each unreserved coach from the starting station of the train. At the intermediate stations, only 20 percent of unreserved tickets will be issued according to the capacity of the coach. For example, if a train has four coaches, then a maximum of 600 unreserved tickets will be issued from the starting station. If the trial going on at New Delhi Railway Station is successful, then this system can be implemented across the country.

According to railway sources, the software being used for the trial will only count tickets for those trains that are scheduled to run in the next three hours. For example, if four trains are to run from New Delhi to Varanasi in three hours and each has 4 coaches, then it will issue a maximum of 2400 tickets for 16 coaches. After this, automatic ticketing will stop just like it happens in AC or sleeper.

This means that the railways is now going to limit the sale of unreserved tickets. This will reduce the crowd in trains and passengers will get a chance to travel comfortably. This rule can prove to be very helpful during festivals, when trains are very crowded.