Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

PIL against `tatkal' scheme withdrawn

Staff Reporter

Revised scheme is more passenger-friendly, says DRM

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has dismissed as withdrawn a public interest litigation challenging the revised `tatkal' scheme to reserve railway tickets.

The petitioner's counsel withdrew the case when the Bench felt that it was a frivolous petition dealing with the policy decision of the Railway Board and the litigant should be imposed a hefty cost. In his counter affidavit, the Madurai Divisional Railway Manager, B.N. Rajasekhar, said the revised scheme was more passenger-friendly and had been devised to eliminate shortcomings in the previous scheme. Under the previous scheme, many complaints were received that on-board staff were misusing unutilised `tatkal' accommodation by carrying unauthorised passengers.

But now there was no chance of any irregularities as reservation under the scheme was permitted only until the preparation of passenger charts and any unutilised accommodation was released to RAC/waitlisted passengers, he said.

Moreover, under the revised scheme, the passengers need not carry their identity cards for booking tickets or during travel, as required in the previous scheme, and the scheme had now been extended to air-conditioned chair car, 3 tier AC and 2-tier AC besides sleeper class in all mail/express trains, Mr. Rajasekhar added.

The senior standing counsel for Indian Railways, S. Manohar, refuted the charge of the petitioner that the revised scheme was illogical, unfair and anti-consumer. By fixing two different charges for peak season and non-peak season and also refusing to refund charges in case of cancellation of tickets, the railways was only trying to keep the touts away from misusing the scheme, he said.

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