Railway passenger books tickets for seats that don’t exist

Vijay Shukla, who was travelling with his brother, was allotted seat numbers 74 and 75 in the C1 coach after he booked the tickets online. He boarded the train to realise that there were only 73 seats in the coach.

A man who boarded a train from Lucknow to Varanasi on Monday found himself in a peculiar situation when he realised that the seats for which he had booked the tickets for, doesn’t exist. The incident took place on 14204 Lucknow-Varanasi Intercity Express.

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Vijay Kumar Shukla, who was travelling with his brother, was allotted seat numbers 74 and 75 in the C1 coach after he booked the tickets online through IRCTC. He boarded the train to realise that there were only 73 seats in his coach.

“A travelling ticket examiner (TTE) told us that such instances are common and that he has complained about the goof-up in ticket bookings to the department concerned and higher officials. But no action was taken so far to resolve the tech glitch,” Shukla added.

Shukla and his brother were allotted different seats later.

The TTE also told him that another coach had 75 seats but the one that Shukla was allotted had only 73. “As the server shows 75 seats in the coach, 75 people are allotted seats there. The TTE also said that he has been facing the brunt of passengers who shout and hurl abuses at him,” Shukla added.

Taking note of the tech glitch, Ashish Singh, station director of the Charbagh railway station, said: “This problem was brought to our attention 15 days ago. We have relayed the information to the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), responsible for maintaining a majority of key information systems of Indian Railways. If the problem persists, we will look into it.”