Unusual spurt in railway ticket sale

KANNUR: Post the announcement of demonetisation of currency notes of higher denominations, an unusual surge has been witnessing in railway ticket purchase at the stations falling under the Palakkad division.
“There is a huge increase in the sale of tickets and the trend is ubiquitous in almost all stations under the division. We are expecting a surge in the cancellation of tickets in the coming days,”a senior railway official told Express on conditions of anonymity.

The gross daily earning at Kozhikode passenger reservation system was Rs 7.78 lakh on 7 November, this went up to Rs 8.16 lakh on November 10. Likewise, at Kannur, the gross earning increased from Rs 5.89lakh to Rs 7.76lakh from November 7 to November 9. Following is the palpable changes in earnings registered at other stations during the past three days: Mangalore Satellite Centre: Rs 1.94 lakh to Rs 3.42lakh, Mangalore Centre Rs 5.68lakh to Rs 6.28 lakh.  At Shoranur, the earnings almost doubled from Rs 74,000 to Rs 1.48 lakh within this short span of time. “The senior officials are looking for the reasons behind this drastic increase in the earnings through ticket sales,” he added.

Restrictions on ticket cancellations
Of late, Railway has issued an order restricting cancellation of tickets above the value of Rs 5,000 at the railway counters.“For the cancellation of tickets above the value Rs 5,000, the passengers will be issued Ticket Deposit Receipt (TDR). They are supposed to approach the Divisional Senior Commercial Manager and submit the TDR along with the original tickets. The reimbursement will be made directly to the bank accounts of the applicants and the money won’t be given at the counters,” he said. The official admitted that reimbursements for cancellation of tickets worth over Rs 5000 were made at counters by mistake in about 8 cases. “Action would be taken against the railway employees who were responsible for the same,”he added.   

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