Following a directive from Allahabad High Court the Railway Board has asked both the Western and Central Railway to note down the addresses of commuters who buy season passes. This is likely to swell up queues and lead to other problems at ticket counters.

 

The directive has come into effect from April, it is being executed steadily across railway stations on both the Western and Central Railway. The WR has already conveyed to the Railway Board regarding the difficulty in implementing the order.The railway sources said, “The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) first said there was not enough space on season passes to display commuters' addresses. It then made arrangements to do so, but said the system will not be able to handle long addresses and that booking clerk will have to note down such addresses on paper when issuing season tickets." It further added that of the 70 lakh WR and CR commuters, around 48 lakh are season ticket holders.

 

The system believes senior WR officials, is literally impossible to implement in Mumbai which has a large migrant population and this will lead to delays. “We are still not completely clear on the kind of address proof to accept. Booking clerks have already started telling us they do not want to fight with commuters over this and hence we have asked our senior officials to implement the new system only after there is clarity on this. Otherwise there could be huge fights at booking counters,” cautioned the official.

 

Booking clerks are already chary of the latest scheme, saying that jotting down the address of every season ticket holder will cause enormous delays. Under the current system, an ID card is issued to season ticket holders, on which they are expected to write their addresses.

 

A booking clerk on condition of anonymity said, “We struggle to issue at least three tickets per minute and still there are long queues. If we have to note down addresses as well, it will take even more time and people in queue will get agitated.”