A trip to Taj Mahal, or Qutab Minar or any of the 116 ticketed monuments maintained by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) around the country will be easy soon, with plans to introduce e-ticketing and other queue-busters getting the needed go-ahead.
Once the proposal takes shape, a visitor would simply have to log on to a dedicated web portal to book a ticket and take a printout. Payment could be through credit card or net banking. The printout would be enough to gain hassle-free entry to any monument. “As in case of booking a rail ticket, the visitor will also receive information over his cell phone. In event of any cancellations or emergency, the user will get updates,” an ASI official said.
Alternatively, visitors to the monuments will be given e-tickets printed on the spot. To manage the rush during peak season, ticket vendors will also carry hand-held devices to give instant tickets and cut down queues. Moreover, as a new feature, visitors will be able to pay through their credit cards which would come as boon for foreign tourists who pay Rs 250 for each ticket now, while Indians and visitors from SAARC nations mostly pay Rs 10.
The tickets will carry a bar code which will be validated by hand-held scanners before providing entry.
“The ASI has initiated the process to outsource the work to a professional agency which can run and operate ticketing across all monuments. The system has been designed by the National Institute of Smart Governance. The process to hire the agency, which will provide web-based solutions, has begun with bids being floated last week,” an official said.
The agency will manage the entire gamut of ticketing operations right from designing the system, booking, running the website, managing counters and checking tickets. The system will be geared to book over 5 crore tickets every year, with a capacity to book three lakh tickets every day.
Not only would the long overdue process provide respite to the visitors, it would also make economic sense for the ASI.
With over-4.5 crore visitors flocking 116 ticketed monuments in 2012-13, the ASI on an average earns over `90 crore every year through tickets sales alone.
The tickets are currently printed centrally at the India Security Press, Nasik, and issued to each circle, based on requirement. The ASI had tied up with the security press, which prints currency notes, in 2010, to put a check on fake tickets.
The NISG, which conducted a study of the ASI’s ticketing mechanism, found that at present a purchaser of ticket may not necessarily be the end user of the ticket. “Moreover, there is currently no mechanism to identify a ticket with a ticket holder either at the issuing point or at the checking point. There is no tracking mechanism to see whether every issued ticket is used at a monument site... even the ticket issuers as well as the ticket checkers are typically multi-task support staff members of the ASI who are expected to perform this function in addition to their other routine functions,” the NISG document said.
Referring to problems faced by visitors, the NISG said, “There is lack of effort to attend to complaints and grievances. No priority ticketing for the elderly, women with small children and differently-abled. There is also a possibility of overcharging of visitor fee from the tourists visiting the monuments and even loss of revenue due to malpractices.”
In the new system, with a person booking a ticket over the Internet, the system would capture the visitor’s name and even passport number. A person will be able to book tickets for multiple monuments at a time. The system would also allow currency converter in case of a booking from a foreign country.
According to sources, the system will be started in phases with 10 monuments at a time. In the first phase, 10 world heritage monuments which carry a UNSECO tag, like Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, Fatehpur Sikri, Ajanta and Ellora caves, temples at Hampi, Khajuraho, Konark, Buddhist monuments at Sanchi and Mamallapuram, will be covered.
