By IANS,
New Delhi: Railway Minister Mukul Roy Friday attributed the problems in sale of Tatkal (emergency travel) tickets to a demand-supply mismatch and said his ministry has taken some steps to ease the over-burdened system.
“The railway operates 11,000 trains per day on 64,000 route km…there is a mismatch in the demand-supply..the system is overburdened,” Roy told reporters here.
“There have been complaints related to Tatkal tickets…we have taken some steps to address the problem.”
Roy added that the e-ticketing facility has made buying tickets much easier for the passengers but the carrying capacity have not matched pace with the development.
Concerned over large-scale complaints in the sale of Tatkal tickets, the railways last week decided that booking of tickets from July 10 will start at 10 am instead of 8 am at present.
The railways also decided that no authorised agents, including that of the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation, will be allowed to book Tatkal tickets from 10 am to 12 noon, in an attempt to curb the activity of touts.
The existing restriction of not allowing the agents booking of general tickets on the opening day from 8 am to 10 am will also continue, it said.
Officials said while there is a huge passenger demand on the Tatkal system during the first few minutes after the booking counters open at 8 am.
They agreed stricter vigilance outside the ticket booking counters is required to ensure that the touts are kept out of the queues and only the genuine passengers are able to benefit from the facilty.
Railways sell around 35,000 tatkal tickets per day.