PINAKI MAJUMDAR
Jamshedpur, Feb 17: The Chakradharpur railway division has started a window sale drive at various stations under it. A large number of commuters use the railway as the medium of transport; however, it is quite alarming that most of them travel without valid travelling authority.
The students can easily avail of free MSTs, but they prefer to travel just by showing their IDs.
Thus, railways fail to ascertain the actual number of passengers using the transport. This has consequently resulted in the removal of many stoppages over this division.
Thus, the Railway administration has appealed to rail users for obtaining proper tickets before undertaking travel.
In order to sensitize the public, a phase-wise approach has been planned to enhance ticket sales over the division.
In the first phase, the drives are planned for the month of February at Rajkharsawan, Sini, Chaibasa, Adityapur, Manoharpur and Rajgangpur. There has been an increase of 204 % in terms of ticket sales and 238 % in terms of earnings over the related Sections based on data up to February 10.
A senior railway official said, ” In the second phase, we have planned to approach 16 colleges from Rajkharsawan, Chaibasa, Maluka, Chakradharpur, Panposh, Rourkela, Rajgangpur and Jharsuguda from which students travel daily to make them aware of the concessions they are entitled and also about the consequences of ticketless travel so that they travel with proper tickets while growing up as a responsible citizen of the country. We appeal to every affiliated school and college to come forward and help us in this initiative.”
In the third phase, railways planned to approach factories, industries, other government organizations and PSUs to sensitise the employees of these organizations to travel with proper tickets.
“We hope to serve our bonafide customers with better end-user experience, with this initiative and also justify running of coaching trains over this division,” added the official.
