Water-vending, ticket-vending machines lie defunct

Bathinda, December 10

Water-vending machines, automatic ticket-vending machines, digital display board and the Wi-Fi system are lying defunct at the city railway station.

A total of eight water-vending machines were installed at the railway station to provide potable water to passengers at nominal rates, but they have been lying defunct for the past several months due to the non-payment of the rent. On a number of occasions, the authorities had written to officials of the Ambala division about the non-functional water-vending machines, but to no avail.

The authorities had recently installed three ticket-vending machines to provide relief to passengers from standing in long queues to get their tickets. But for the past few months, one of the ticket-vending machines is defunct. No effort has been made to repair the machine.

Though a digital display board was installed above the enquiry counter to disseminate information regarding the arrival and departure of trains, besides the position of rail coaches on the platform, it is yet to be made functional.

The Wi-Fi facility is also not available for passengers for the past few days.

However, station superintendent Ramswaroop Meena said the Wi-Fi facility was available and it was working.

He said, “Due to networking issues, sometimes there connectivity problems occur and it does not mean that the Wi-Fi system is not functioning.”

On water-vending machines, he said, “Though, the water-vending machines are working, they are shut down due to the non-payment of rent.”

He said they had already informed the higher officials about the non-functional ticket-vending machine and it would be repaired soon.

Meena said they were planning to install one more digital display board at the city railway station so they had planned to start both boards at the same time.— TNS