Railway Passengers struggle with train bookings as travel demand soars

Railway passengers face a tough time in getting confirmed berths for metropolitan cities as travel demand increases.

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The Indian Railways last month announced to operate over 120 special superfast trains to cater to the inflow of passengers. However, the passengers are having a tough time getting confirmed berths for metropolitan cities as travel demand has increased tremendously due to ease in Covid-19 restrictions and the reopening of offices, colleges, and schools.

Superfast trains like Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express, and Duronto Express are operating at 100 per cent capacity since Holi. Passengers planning to visit cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Lucknow, Kolkata, and Kochi are struggling the most with the bookings.

With ease in Covid-19 cases and restrictions, educational institutions and offices have reopened pan-India, hence, there was an increase in the number of bookings. This has also led to a steep increase in black-marketing of railway tickets among touts.

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) recently arrested 1,459 touts and blocked 366 IRCTC agent IDs and 6,751 personal IDs as part of a month-long pan-India drive against illegal ticketing, the Railways said.

The drive, 'Operation Upalabdh', was conducted following the restoration of long-distance train services as the festival and summer rush was expected to bring about a sharp rise in the demand for reserved train seats, it said.

"Taking note of the input, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) geared up its efforts and launched a pan-India drive against activities of touts in the month of March 2022. The drive was immensely successful and resulted in the arrest of 1,459 touts, out of which 341 were authorized IRCTC agents but also indulged in touting railway tickets. The process of blacklisting these IRCTC agents and blocking as many as 366 IRCTC agent IDs and 6,751 personal IDs is being undertaken," a statement from the Railways said.

The number of arrests is about 3.64 times the figure for the month of February. Tickets of future journeys worth more than Rs 65 lakh cornered by these touts illegally were recovered and blocked, thus making these seats available to bonafide passengers, the statement said.

Over 1800 express trains are operating in India which is higher than the number of trains plying before the Covid-19 pandemic.

With inputs from PTI