If you want to book Tatkal railway tickets from the city go in person to the ticket booking counter with your identity card as the Bangalore Division has stopped issuing Tatkal tickets intermediaries in most of the ticket booking counters to keep touts at bay.
Tatkal tickets would be issued to intermediaries after due verification in only one designated counters in some important ticket booking centres in the city.
Senior Divisional Commercial Manager N Ramesh said, “As the touts were fleecing money from people by standing in queues much before those who want the Tatkal tickets could even come to the booking counters, we had to stop issuing tickets to intermediaries in all the booking counters. In accordance with the instructions of our Divisional Railway Manager A K Aggarwal, we have set aside one counter in some of the important ticket booking centres for those who book tickets through intermediaries.”
Ramesh said Tatkal tickets, issued one day in advance, were issued to anyone if they had a request letter and an identity card of the applicant.
As the railways start issuing Tatkal tickets for the trains that run the following day at 10 am everyday, the touts used to stand in queues very early in the morning and book many tickets by using fake identity cards for the travel agencies that charge exorbitantly for booking tickets. Therefore, the deserving ticket seekers were at the mercy of these touts. The railway officials had failed to check the touts, he added.
The Tatkal counters which issue tickets only to those who come in person with valid identity cards are called Self Tatkal Ticketing Window Systems.
However, the intermediaries can book tickets at only one specified counter at City Railway Station, Cantonment, Yeshwantpur, Jayanagar, Koramangala, K R Puram and Vijaynagar.
There will be 21 counters for those who book tickets directly.