Bengaluru: In good news for railway passengers, they will in future be able to book their berths or seats along with booking their train tickets online.
There will be no more grumbling about being allotted an upper berth or a poor seat as seeing the growing volume of online ticket booking, and increasing malpractices in the system, the Indian Railways has now come out with fresh guidelines to allow passengers to choose their seats on trains much like on planes and buses.
Pointing out that about two crore people travel by the railways every day, a senior railway official notes that at present no passenger can book his or her preferred seat because they are system generated. "But in future the option will be left to the passengers to choose their seats while booking their train tickets. This service will be similar to that offered by airlines and bus services," he explains.
Reservation charts will be made public with the help of the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) to make the seat allocation process easier and transparent, according to him. Like with airline booking, a passenger will be able to see the seat layout plan with the booked and unbooked are clearly marked in different colours.
Welcoming the idea, a regular train passenger, says, "This has made me happy because I used to travel to North Karnataka every month and sometimes saw pregnant women and senior citizens being given upper berth seats, which they found difficult to use. This new system will help people choose the kind of seats they want."
Service similar to that offered by airlines, buses n Charts to show vacant slots
