Closed ticket counters irk passengers

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 15

Passengers at the railway station are affected as two out of the three reservation ticket counters are lying closed due to a shortage of staff.

The closed reservation ticketing counters are causing inconvenience to the passengers as they had to wait in a queue for long outside the single working counter.

The Bathinda Tribune team visited these ticket counters for two consecutive days. Today, the team visited the ticket counter at 1.30 pm and found that only the single counter was working, while two others were lying closed. On Monday also, the counters were found closed at 12.30 pm.

Another problem being faced by residents is that passenger and children assistance booths were also lying defunct and remain closed all time at the station. Passengers are facing problems as they fail to get any assistance when required.

Sukhraj Singh, a resident, said: “We face inconvenience as most of the time these ticket counters remain closed. We have to wait in a queue for long to get our tickets booked.”

Another resident Vijay Kumar said, “The railway station is ill-equipped to issue tickets and make reservations. It will give much relief to residents if these ticket counters remain open.”

He said earlier, there was only one ticket counter at the station. Other counters were opened after repeated requests to the authorities concerned, but these remain closed most of the time, he added.

Ramswaroop Meena, railway station superintendent, said they open reservation ticket counters alternatively as during afternoon a counter remains open and in evening, when rush was more then three counters remain open.He said this had been done as they had a shortage of staff.