Mad rush for tickets that was a routine affair everyday at Ranch Railway station is likely to become a thing of past in days to come as the Railway administration today put up four additional counters at the station for the convenience of passengers.
The counters placed opposite to the existing counters were inaugurated by Divisional Railway Manager Dipak Kashyap. The number of counters at Ranchi Railway station has now gone up to 13. Senior Divisional Commercial Manager was also present on the occasion.
“Every day we were getting complains about inconvenience to a passenger due to inadequate number of ticket counters so we decided to open four additional counters,” said the DRM.
Nonetheless, staff crunch is still the hurdle in way of translating the mission behind additional ticket counters into action. Moreover, passengers claim that even the existing counters would have solved the problem by deputing staffs at all counters during peak hour.
“You can see the scramble for obtaining ticket. Nine counters are enough for issuing general tickets but sometimes either the staff at the counter is not present or the staff is too slow in issuing ticket,” said a passenger while running to board Vananchal Express that leaves Ranchi at around 2.45 pm.
Notwithstanding four additional ticket counters only two to three are likely to be functional in the absence of adequate staffs. According to Railway officials the counter will be open from 5am to 9pm with two shifts of 5am to 1pm and 1pm to 9pm for changing staffs on the counter.
Meanwhile, the DRM informed media the development works done by the Railway Administration in recent times which includes erecting a wall on one side of the Ranchi Railway Station, installing CCTV cameras and placing metal detectors to screen patients entering station platform. Incidentally, the safety mechanisms installed on the platform and a concrete wall on the other side of the station have been introduced to control criminal activities or to trap a criminal in the safety net installed.