30-minute queue for a Rs 3 platform ticket

30-minute queue for a Rs 3 platform ticket
Deccan Herald

The four platform ticket machines at the Bangalore City railway station appear to be the only ones around having a relaxed time – hardly anyone seems to be even aware of their existence. Both personnel manning the counters selling unreserved and platform tickets, and the people waiting in endless queues are, to say the least, under some strain.

When Deccan Herald caught an agitated Mr Basappa as he left the unreserved ticketing counter, he knew exactly how long he had been waiting: 37 minutes and he knew the exact time as he had a train to catch in exactly three minutes.
He was not the only one under stress. Everyday many Basappas undergo the rather time-consuming experience of trying to buy an unreserved or platform ticket, the two tasks that involve waiting in long queues.

Mr Gagarin, senior divisional commercial manager, admits that “it is almost next to impossible to control the crowd”. He says that both unreserved and platform ticketing happens “in fits and starts”. There is hardly any demand for a long time, he says, and then “in five minutes thousands of people want to buy tickets”.
Are they trying to do something about it? Yes, he says, work is in progress to open up a few more counters for unreserved ticketing “in a few months”. About four more counters are to be opened.

Mr Gagarin claims that the machines are being used, and that they sell around 4,000 tickets each day. Besides, the plan is to add two or three more. He agrees, however, that “more publicity is needed” to put them to optimal use.

One problem that will not go away is that of the small change needed. Three rupees is the price of a platform ticket, and if the customer does not have the amount in rupee one and two coins , it is practically impossible to get loose change from anywhere around. Why not some rather more easily available denomination coins such as two or five rupees? That, says Mr Gagarin, is not in the the railways’ hands. Tickets cost the same all over the country, having been fixed by an act of parliament.

So a visitor to the station will find that he needs two kinds of change – small, and big.