Reservation of tickets comes to a halt

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, June 30

Reservation of tickets in trains came to a grinding halt after the ticket-reservation Centre was gutted in a fire that broke out at the railway station in Amritsar on Thursday morning.

Eyewitnesses said sounds of explosions were heard when raging flames were seen coming out. The centre turned into an inferno and later charred remains of burnt furniture, computers and other materials were seen.

On an average, about 1,800 tickets used to be booked at the reservation centre. Material costing nearly Rs 1 crore was lost in the fire.

People, who came to get the reservation tickets, were shocked to find the entire reservation centre gutted.

A tourist, Harjit Kaur, said she specially came here in the morning to make a reservation for her return journey to Meerut.

She had come here to pay obeisance at the Golden Temple some days back.

She added that she was at a loss as railway officials were not aware when the ticket reservations would resume.

Another passenger, Sawinder Singh, said for an urgent domestic work he wanted a seat reserved to Gwalior under the Tatkal scheme. However, he could not avail of the service as the reservation service stood snapped.

DRM Anuj Prakash said two reservation booking windows were made operational at the general waiting hall side by 12 in the noon and some hours later another set of two windows were opened for the public at the current-booking window at the railway station.