Rly reservation centres to come up in city

Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, March 25

Rail passengers will soon be able to purchase reserved tickets from Yatri Ticket Suvidha Kendras, eight of which are to become operational soon at different locations in the city. The initiative by the Northern Railway authorities is aimed at tackling rush at the railway reservation complex and make railway reservation a hassle-free procedure.

The Divisional Traffic Manager of Northern Railway SP Singh said the railways had signed an agreement with the off-location railway reservation agencies and the vendors are already in the process of setting up the required infrastructure such as computer terminals, printers and necessary software for issuing reservation tickets. “Once the equipment is in place, the Railways will provide networking facility to the centres to provide access to the railway reservation network.

He said it was for the first time that off-location ticketing agencies would issue a hard copy of PNR (passenger name record) unlike e-tickets issued by the authorised travel agencies. With the YTSKs becoming functional, the intending rail travellers will not have to go to the railway reservation complex where people have to wait for long hours, especially during the festival season and vacations.

While two centres will be located in the vicinity of the railway station and two on Gill Road, others would come up at Sherpur, Cheema Chowk, Shiv Puri and Basti Jodhewal Chowk.

The off-location reservation centres were a part of the drive launched by the railway authorities to decongest and decentralise the railway reservation and ticketing facility. In the first phase, around one dozen Jan Sadaharan Ticket Booking Sewa centres were opened at different places in the city which were issuing only unreserved (current and advance) tickets.

Officials at the railway station said the reservation centres would come as a boon for the travelling public and at the same time take a significant work load off the railway staff. Although the officials did not say it in so many words, a couple of booking counters, of a total of 11 at the railway reservation centre, have to be kept closed due to the shortage of staff or at times due to other reasons, including technical snag or disruption in the computer connectivity.