East Central Railway Makes Arrangement for Issuing Tatkal Tickets

East Central Railway (ECR) has made elaborate arrangements for issuing Tatkal tickets from all its passenger reservation system (PRS) counters under the new amended rules from June 15. Under the new rules, Tatkal tickets would be issued to passengers one day in advance from the journey date from 10am to 11am for AC class and from 11am to 12 for sleeper class, instead of 10am to noon for both AC and sleeper classes. ECR CPRO Arvind Kumar Rajak said though railways would start issuing tickets from 8am at all PRS counters, there would be separate counters for Tatkal tickets at each station under all five divisions of the zone. Tatkal tickets would be given to passengers from 10am to noon just a day in advance of journey, otherwise normal waitlist tickets would be booked from PRS counters, he said. Rajak said railways would maintain transparency while issuing Tatkal tickets from PRS counters. Reservation supervisors have been directed to maintain proper queues for both Tatkal and general tickets at each counter under all five divisions of the zone, he said. According to sources, reservation staff on duty would accept duly filled-in requisition slips with full address for issuing Tatkal tickets. The PRS office having a single counter would book Tatkal tickets only from 10am to 12 noon every day. However, normal tickets would be issued to passengers after 12 noon, sources said adding the PRS having two counters like Patna Saheb, Buxar, Mahendru Ghat, Patna high court and Patna University would issue Tatkal and normal tickets separately from these counters. Senior divisional commercial manager of Danapur Amitabh Prabhakar said railways would make all possible efforts to streamline Tatkal ticket booking, particularly at Patna Junction and Rajendra Nagar Terminal where passengers' rush is too high for procuring Tatkal tickets. Adequate number of counters would function at both the stations. Railways has already started a separate counter for senior citizens at Patna Junction under Tatkal scheme, he said. Meanwhile, deliberations are going on at Railway Board level to refund at least half the fare on cancelled tickets booked under Tatkal scheme. Presently, there is no rule to refund the fare of the cancelled Tatkal tickets, sources said.