Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Consumer bodies’ plea to Railway Minister

Coimbatore: The Coimbatore Consumer Cause (CCC) has appealed to the Union Railway Minister to desist from resorting to the unfair practice of collecting extra charge/fee in various forms.

With the Union Railway Budget expected to be presented before Parliament within a couple of weeks, the secretary of CCC, K. Kathirmathiyon, reminded the Union Railway Minister the criticisms made by the Parliamentary Committee on Railways for adopting deceptive practices imposing financial burden on the passengers in an indirect manner. He urged the Railway Minister to correct the same in the ensuing railway budget.

He urged the railway administration to stop conversion of trains into super fast just for the sake of collecting additional surcharge and said that the Railways should have a clear definition regarding the facilities, speed, minimum distance and number of stoppages for express and super fast trains.

Selling of tickets for higher rates in the name of ‘tatkal’ thus, denying tickets to the passengers in need should be stopped immediately. Daytime trains should have only chair car coach and using sleeper class coaches to collect sleeper class charges should be stopped. Railways should give a clear commitment that the fares, direct or indirect, would be collected only after approval from Parliament and not based on mere administrative orders.

Secretary of Citizens Voice Club C.M. Jeyaraam in a memorandum to the Union Railway Minister said that tatkal system of reservation was originally introduced with an intention of making reservation tickets available for passengers wanting to travel in the last minute.

The tickets were made available at an additional fee on certain specified trains. Now the same had been introduced in all trains and for all destinations and the period was also slowly increased to five days before the date of journey. This had resulted in tickets not being available for genuine travellers.

The charges for tatkal had been unviable by collecting fare from the originating station to destination of the train instead of the actual distance travelled.

Mr. Jeyaraam suggested that charges collected for tatkal should be reasonable, perhaps Rs 100 could be fixed in addition to the actual train fare for the distance travelled. Tatkal booking should be allowed only a day before the date of travel and not five days in advance.

To ensure genuineness, passengers should be asked to carry a photo identification card so that travel agents exploiting the facility could be checked.

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