Mumbai:
With Diwali festival commencing, the local trains are witnessing an increase in passengers as many are commuting to different parts of city as well as neighbouring Mumbai to meet their relatives. However, with shortage of railway coupons, they are witnessing long queues at the ticket counters.
At the same time, GO card counters are also closed down which is adding to the chaos even more. "It is shocking to know that railway coupons are not available on any of the stations. People are seen standing in long queues even during lean hours. During peak hours, huge chaos is witnessed at railway stations. I regularly travel between Thane-Vashi and prefer buying coupons to avoid long queues, but since past one month the same are not available on any of the stations and even GO pass counters are closed. This situation will turn to be more grave on Bhubeej day since lot of people travel on this day," Seema Desai, a Vashi resident said.
On the other hand, people are spending lot of time on buying the ticket, as ticket counters are not increased. "Railway should either start the immediate sale of coupons or should increase the ticket counters as rush on the limited counters are increasing day-by-day. People are wasting lot of time only to buy ticket as they are waiting for 20-30 minutes in the queue to purchase the ticket, which is also leading to lot of chaos in the station premises," Desai added.
Similar view was shared by Bhakti Thakur of Kharghar. "I have never seen so much rush at Kharghar station as over 70 people were standing in the queue with only one ticket counter open."
When contacted, Central Railway PRO AK Singh said, "Coupon supply has already started in all stations, but we have limited stock therefore we are giving only three bundles to each station. The new stock of coupons has new logo and monogram which is difficult to duplicate. We are ensuring that all railway station has stock of coupons."
When asked why GO Mumbai Card is shutdown, Singh replied, "Our GO Mumbai Card contract is over and a policy decision on the same is expected to be taken soon.
Copyright restricted. Under license from
www.3dsyndication.com