NEW DELHI: The tatkal scheme
was introduced to help people get train tickets at short notice. But
skyscraping demand and a stranglehold of touts have meant that even
spending a sleepless night at the reservation counter does not guarantee
a confirmed ticket in the morning.
People, many with their families, start queuing up outside reservation counters as early as 7pm the previous evening. The counters open at 8am and all tatkal tickets are sold within minutes. So, even after a 13-hour wait you may return empty-handed.
According to railways sources, about 1.1 lakh tatkal tickets are offered every day. In the first five minutes, the system receives 4.5 lakh requests for tatkal tickets. On certain trains, tickets get sold out in less than a minute.
TOI teams visited different reservation centres early on Monday and found similar scenes of chaos. Those waiting in line were cynical about the system and touts invariably made their way into the queue through various ways.
At Sarojini Nagar, touts reserve spots by planting beggars outside counters. Smart ones buy the space paying Rs 200-300 to proxy passengers minutes before gates are opened.
At Nizamuddin, touts come only in the morning and bully people to move back. Shadab, who has been at New Delhi centre since 11pm, says he was number 20 when he stood in the line. But by 7am he had been pushed to number 50. "Touts push in their people and the line gets longer," he laments.
This well-oiled procedures, which people claim has the police's support, generates good business for touts and agents. But the public has to sweat it out.
Around 5am at Sarojini Nagar and Nizamuddin, people are resting on sheets and pillows waiting for counters to open. At the New Delhi station reservation centre, the beat officer says getting a confirmed ticket is no less than winning the Kaun Banega Crorepati show. This is because even after spending a night outside the reservation office, people do not know who would be the first few to be let into the counters by the cops. "Enter the premises in groups of four," says the cop at the New Delhi counter as he chooses the first lot. This upsets Ajay Jha, who has been waiting at number 9 in the queue for more than 15 hours, as he is let inside only in the fourth group. This means he would lose a few crucial moments -- often the difference between a confirmed ticket or dejection.
At the Sarojini Nagar centre, the system is different. There, names are called out -- "Shweta, Kiran, Lakshmi, Nilesh, Rita" -- to which individuals answer with a 'yes'. It is an attendance for people to stand in queue and secure their spot, for which many have slept at the reservation counter.
Lakshmi, 30, who had come to visit Delhi has been stuck in the capital since she cannot get a confirmed ticket back to Bengal. "I came here on Saturday for Tatkal tickets but got a wait-listed one," she says. Though she is the first person at a counter, she can get only a few confirmed tickets.
Almost everyone waiting for hours outside the reservation centres has a similar lament. "When a tout or an agent is at the counter, the processing is faster. But when we are there, the system slows down," says Vivek Roy from Darbhanga in Bihar.
Courtesy : Times of India
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