Title - Railways close ticket booking counter in Pratap Nagar

Bathinda:
The Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Sewak centre, operating at Pratap Nagar street number 2, has been shut leaving railway passengers in discomfort.The counter was operating for the past six years and used to remain open from 4 am to 11 pm. The counter, situated in the trans railway line area, used to witness heavy rush and more than 1,000 tickets were sold on an average everyday.Located at an easily accessible place, women, children and elderly could easily bought tickets from here and did not need to go all the way to the railway station.“Over the past six years, we had grown used to getting tickets issued from here. It is difficult to go off to the counter at the cloth market,” said Nirbhay Singh, a resident of Paras Ram Nagar.Another ticket counter in the city is located at the cloth market, which will be closed down on December 31, 2013.A new counter has been allotted at the Gole Diggi Market, which is yet to become functional. Consequently, the Pratap Nagar counter was a big relief for people living in the tarns railway line areas.

The Ministry of Railways had introduced a scheme to issue unreserved tickets through the Computerised Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS). These counters charged Re 1 more than the actual fare on each ticket and had been doing brisk business giving profit to the railways.

Owner of the counter, Sandeep Bansal said when the scheme was introduced the counters owners were not informed that it had been allotted for a period of six years only. “We were not aware of the stipulation of six years. It was the first counter opened in the Ambala division, which was closed down on March 29,” he said.

It is pertinent to mention here that during the railway budget, Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal had mentioned that more counters would be opened to make the tickets easily accessible to people. However, people demanded that the ministry should not close down the old ones.

The Scheme

The Ministry of Railways had introduced a scheme to issue unreserved tickets through the Computerised Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS). These counters charged Re 1 more than the actual fare on each ticket and had been doing brisk business earning profit to the Railways.