No room for passengers with confirmed tickets
Jaipur-Bandra Aravali Express had eight 72-berth coaches instead of 81-berth compartments
By Yogesh Avasthi
Posted On Wednesday, February 04, 2009 (Ahmedabad Mirror : http://www.ahmedabadmirror.com/index.aspx?Page=article§name=News%20-%20City§id=3&contentid=200902042009020402413515456582bc8)
Several passengers of Jaipur-Bandra Aravali Express spent sleepless night on Monday despite having confirmed tickets, while few others cancelled their journey due to a goof-up by railway authorities. The train comprised eight 72-berth coaches even as 81 passengers had confirmed tickets to travel in each.The express train leaves Jaipur at 8.45 am everyday. Its scheduled arrival time to Ahmedabad is 10.10 pm. When the train reached Ahmedabad on Monday night, around 25 passengers with confirmed tickets were shocked to find there was no room on the train.
The passengers travelling from Jaipur on the train explained to their Ahmedabad counterparts the reason behind the overcrowding. The passengers supposed to board the train from Ahmedabad ap-proached railway authorities, but did not get any satisfactory re-sponse. When the passengers were arguing with the ticket exam-iner, the train started for Bandra.
Some of the passengers pulled chain and detained the train further. Conceding that such an incident had taken place on Monday night, Udayshankar Jha, the senior divisional commercial manager of railways, told AM: “Yes, this happened. But the problem was from Jaipur and we were helpless. We were not in a position to attach extra coaches.”
Earlier, passengers boarding the train in Jaipur, faced similar problem. When they approached railway authorities, they were told that the matter would be sorted out shortly. But no steps were taken till the train departed from Ahmedabad.
