The failure of token system for the ticket reservation process at Ranchi railway station is creating trouble for the passengers who come to book their tickets. The system which facilitated commuters to reserve their tickets on the first come first served basis is futile from long time.
The passengers standing in long queue waiting for hours to reach the reservation counter for ticket booking has become a common sight of Ranchi railway’s reservation counters. long wait is becoming great inconvenience especially for elder and those hailing from poor health.Nitin Desai who came to the railway station a couple of days back for getting reservation said, “After undergoing the trauma of standing in long queue and waiting for almost two hour I got my tickets booked. My only plea from railway authorities is to bring the token system back on track.”
Token system was implemented in the month of September 2013 to counter the rush at reservation counters. In dearth of manpower, limited number of reservation counters and absence of digital guidelines for the common people about working of token system ended the programme in fiasco. For now the token system is functional only for tatkal reservation.
“In other parts of the country ticket reservation is longer headache for the passengers but here it is like a daring task. The passengers will greatly be relived if the authorities along with reintroduction of token system also increase the number of reservation counters,” said Vartika Agrawal.According to Chief Reservation Supervisor Anita Sinha the system has been stopped from past six months to avoid the confusion occurring in managing normal reservation and tatkal reservation at the same time. If a person in search of tatkal reservation comes before the normal reservation then the first come first serve will get disturbed.
However, another complain at Ranchi railway reservation center is the allocation of separate token number to the same person who comes with two application forms for tatkal reservation. It becomes knotty for the person to have one ticket at a time and the other after an hour.Sourav Kumar living in Sukhla colony said, “I had filled two requisition forms for getting reservation for myself and my cousin brother in Dhanbad Alapuzha Express. The booking clerk handed me one ticket and asked me to wait for another as only one ticket is issued at a time. I had to wait for another half an hour to get my cousin ticket in the same train.”
Railways PRO Kalawanti Devi said, “It is no where mentioned to issue one ticket at a time in the token system. It is wrong. We will look into the matter and take concrete action accordingly.”