Kochi: Passengers arriving at small railway stations in the division will have to wait for the convenience of station masters to buy tickets.
This after the Railways’ repeated attempts to appoint Station Ticket Booking Agents (STBAs) at most ‘E’ category stations (non-suburban with less than Rs 1 crore earnings annually) as part of cost-cutting measures came a cropper.
“There is a lacklustre response in the division, whereas the same initiative is a success elsewhere. It’s a good revenue source for the entrepreneurs living near the stations, the physically challenged or women. The only thing is that they should encourage people to travel more by trains or take season tickets. We’ll bear the cost of hardware and software, including maintenance, electricity and hiring,” said a senior officer with the commercial department.
Currently, STBAs are appointed only at a few stations like Kayamkulam, providing a 10 per cent commission on ticket revenue.
The Railways points out that the appointment of permanent staff at such stations for ticket issuance will burden it with a huge expense.
Amid a barrage of complaints from passengers, divisional authorities have made another attempt to appoint STBAs in seven stations.
“We’ve floated tenders to engage STBAs for three years at Nemom, Cheppad, Kalamassery, Kochuveli, Karukutty and Vallathol Nagar,” the official said.
In those ‘E’ category stations with no STBAs, the station master has to take up the additional job of ticket issuance besides managing train operations and signal and communication.
They will be forced to close the counter when trains pass through the station.
“The basic aim of the policy is to facilitate station managers and assistant station managers to concentrate better on train operations. Otherwise, apart from their basic job, the SMs also had to issue tickets to passengers too,” the official said.
