Several ticket counters shut, passengers hit
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It was half past noon and the scorching heat was burning her skin. Already soaked, her handkerchief barely absorbed any more sweat. Thanks to a marketing executive, a pamphlet he distributed helped her fan the heat. She is 62-year-old Sowbagyam, one of the few hundred rail passengers, who waited tiresomely in serpentine queues outside Moore Market complex railway station for nearly an hour just to buy an unreserved ticket in the afternoon.
Others in the queue had to put up with same discomfort. They were seething in anger, not just due to the mad rush, but the indifference of the railway management. Only five of the nine ticket counters at the MMC complex functioned even as hundreds of passengers sweated it out under the scorching sun.
Some annoyed passengers like Aftab Hussain, who was late in going home for Ramzan, even quarreled with railway officials there, but to no avail as their hue and cry went unheeded.
“Only half the ticket counters function. When we questioned them, they asked us to approach senior officials,” complained another waiting passenger Dhanpal adding several counters remain closed on a regular basis.
Railway officials preferring anonymity attributed the prevailing scenario to enormity of vacancies. They said that 328 posts of commercial booking clerks are vacant in Chennai railway division alone.
The authorities concerned agreed to fill 172 vacancies initially after commercial booking clerks struck work by going on mass leave early this June. However, no progress has been made till date. The vacancies had been existing since 2007, officials pointed out adding that the management filled a meagre 78 posts then and tried to promote automatic ticket vending machines, which, again, did not take off.
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