CHENNAI : Ticket counters at Egmore, Tambaram and neighbouring suburban railway stations were crowded on Wednesday as thousands were heading home to cast vote.
There were long queues to buy tickets for travelling in unreserved coaches of express trains to the Southern districts. The Tambaram-Nagercoil Antyodaya Express, a fully unreserved train, was also one of the chosen train for the last-minute travellers.
However, they were forced to stand in serpentine queues for nearly 50 to 60 minutes despite having UTS mobile application. This is mainly because the unreserved ticketing facility is yet to be enabled in the UTS application for Antyodaya Express.At Tambaram on Tuesday evening, many passengers who had purchased tickets could not board the train as all coaches were fully packed.
“The mobile application allows us to buy tickets for suburban, express and superfast trains. But, we are unable to buy tickets for Antyodaya Express. The Southern Railway is yet to introduce unreserved ticketing option in the UTS. Had the option been enabled, long queues could have been avoided,” said R Krishnan, a passenger who missed the train.
The application was introduced in April, 2015 with paper ticket and paperless ticket options across the SR. While the paperless ticketing facility was initially introduced in the Chennai suburban sections, passengers, who travelled in passenger, express and superfast trains in rest of the zone, had to take printouts of tickets booked through the app.
In April, 2018, the SR upgraded the application enabling the paperless ticketing option. Later, the paperless ticketing facility was further extended across railway zones, facilitating paperless ticket travel for unreserved passengers in the Chennai-Bengaluru and Chennai-Tirupati routes. However, ticketing facility for Antyodaya Express, whose fares are 15 per cent higher than those of the regular superfast express, has not been included since then.
“All coaches in Antyodaya Express get overcrowded during festival and holidays. Either the railways should provide option in the UTS application or it has to issue tickets at all suburban stations two to three hours before the time of train departure,” said A Giri, former member of DRUCC, Tiruchy.
When contacted, a senior railway official said there are only two Antyodaya trains operated in the SR and their fares are slightly higher than those of superfast trains. “The issue has escalated and now we are looking into it,” added the official.