Kochi: At a time when the Thiruvananthapuram division is facing a shortage of nearly 150 Travelling Ticket Examiners, the Southern Railways has inordinately delayed procedures to recruit 60 candidates to the posts.
Despite issuing notification (letter No V/P 531/111/TE/Vol10 dated 11-02-2015) as early as in February, 2015, it is yet to conduct the examination whereas neighbouring Palakkad division, which also issued a notification to fill up 84 posts around the same time, has already made the postings after conducting the tests and the training.
“One reason why the Thiruvananthapuram division instantly sought to review the move to stop issuing over the counter tickets for higher classes is due to the shortage of TTEs while the Palakkad division implemented it as it has sufficient personnel to man the coaches,” said a senior official.
“Nearly 80 trains with 800 reservation coaches run through the division daily. While the norms stipulate that each TTE should look after two coaches, each one of us is actually asked to cover upto six or seven coaches. However, the union asked us to inspect a maximum of three coaches only,” said a TTE on condition of anonymity.
The TTE shortage would affect the commuters in a big way if the railways decide to go ahead with the latest direction not to issue sleeper and AC class tickets from counters.
“The railways have only kept the decision in abeyance. A final decision is yet to come. If they decide to go ahead with the initiative, then the commuters will have to obtain prior permission of TTEs,” the official said.
