To overcome the shortage of Travel Ticket Examiners (TTEs), the railway will soon engage the ticket-selling clerks for the duties of the TTEs. The move comes as e-booking has become very popular in recent years that the requirement of the ticket counters has come down much.
Around 65 per cent of the railway tickets are now booked through Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). Official sources said the booking of the paper tickets has dropped by 50 percent in the last few years and hence the requirement of the clerks in the ticket counters too. On the other hand, there is a shortage of TTEs who man the running trains. To address this, the
Ministry of Railways last December approved engaging commercial clerks for ticket checking duties.
The railway board has now started the works for creating unified cadre merging Travel Ticket Examiners, Commercial Clerks and Enquiry-cum-Reservation Clerks (ECRC) posts. The apex body of the national transporter directed the zonal railways to suggest training module for the unified cadre in each zone. Nearly 25,000 employees are expected to be brought under the unified cadre in Southern railways.
“The move eliminates the work burden of TTEs and also ensure that all the night trains are manned by railways staff,” explained a senior official.
Besides this, railways have also taken slew of measures to shut the ticket counters. To encourage the usage of automatic ticket vending machines (ATVM), the railway decided to engage facilitators to support the travellers.
“So far, retired railway staffs had been engaged as facilitators for selling unreserved tickets at ATVM’s. Now the retired railway staffs family members also to be engaged as a facilitator. One person from every retired railway employee’s will be engaged on a commission basis. Intensive campaign for promoting UTS mobile application also being taken up” added the official sources
According to official records of railways, 15.35 lakhs berth/seats available for booking per day, out of which 3.32 lakhs tickets earmarked for tatkal and premium tatkal quota.