BENGALURU: You can purchase platform tickets at the KSR railway station (Bengaluru City) without stepping into the booking office anymore. For, the Indian Railway Stations Development Corporation (IRSDC) has now put up two new kiosks, one each at the Platform One and Platform Eight entries, exclusively for platform tickets. It plans to facilitate booking using QR code at kiosks as part of its modernisation efforts, which also has the added advantage of avoiding personal interface in Covid-19 time.
A senior IRSDC official told The New Indian Express that the Corporation took over the work of physical booking of platform tickets through its contractor. “From the wee hours of Sunday morning, the booking of tickets has been handed over to us by the Bengaluru Division. We have set up the kiosks manned by staffers right at the two entries of the station, which will be a big convenience to the public as they can park their vehicles and collect the ticket there only,” he said.
IRSDC has been handed over the maintenance of KSR station alone in Bengaluru Division. “We sold 532 tickets from both the counters on Sunday. The sales have been higher than that operated by the Division earlier mainly due to convenient and visible location,” he said.A platform ticket has been priced at Rs 50 at Cantonment, City and Yesvantpur stations in order to dissuade crowds at stations and reduce the spread of Covid-19.
A big move in the offing is that platform tickets can be booked through these kiosks which will have a QR code displayed on it. “One just needs to bring along a mobile, scan the code and collect the ticket from the slit below. There will be no human interface,” he said. IRSDC will be launching the facility in a fortnight, the official said.A N Krishna Reddy, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Bengaluru Division, confirmed that all the platform ticket counters operated by the Division have been closed.