CHENNAI: Rail passengers are unable to book the paperless tickets to destinations in other railway zones, even after five months since the Southern Railway launched UTS mobile app. Particularly, passengers travelling in Chennai-Tirupati and Chennai-Bengaluru routes are the worst affected as they have to purchase only paper tickets.
The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the IT arm of the Railways, which developed the application, was blamed for the technical constraint in UTS app for provisioning ticket booking between stations in same railway zone.
The intercity trains, which start in Chennai, come under the Southern Railway, while the Tirupati and Bengaluru come under the jurisdiction of the South Central and South Western Railway respectively.
“I regularly board Brindavan Express at Walajah to go to Krishnarajapuram (SWR zone). As I have to return on the same day, I mostly prefer to purchase return ticket as well. I tried booking tickets several times, but I am unable to use the UTS app to go to Krishnarajapuram,” said S Aravind, regular commuter from Ranipet. He lodged a complaint with the Southern Railway.
In the Chennai-Bengaluru route, UTS mobile app allows ticket booking between Chennai and Jolarpettai and vice versa. Commuters from Tiruvallur, Vellore and Krishnagiri districts, who regularly travel to Krishnarajapuram, Baiyappanahalli and Bengaluru, are forced to buy paper tickets.
Similarly, in the Chennai-Tirupati route too, passengers say that they are able to book the tickets between Chennai and Pudi, a border station in the Puttur-Renigunta section. This means passengers travelling to Renigunta and Tirupati from Tamil Nadu (Chennai/Tiruvallur/ Arakkonam) and vice versa have to purchase only paper tickets from station counters.
The six daily intercity trains and three passenger trains operated in the Chennai-Benglauru and Chennai-Tirupati routes are patronised by over 50,000 passengers a day from Tiruvallur, Vellore, and Krishnagiri districts and capital cities of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
A railway official said the issue had been taken up with the technical team and paperless tickets can be booked only between stations in the same zone as of now.