Now, book rail tickets at private centres

Now, passengers can reserve railway tickets at windows manned by staff of licensed agencies under the Yatri Ticket Suvidha Kendra (YTSK) scheme.

Now, passengers can reserve railway tickets at windows manned by staff of licensed agencies under the Yatri Ticket Suvidha Kendra (YTSK) scheme.

Under the scheme, the Indian Railways has given licence to eight agencies in Ludhiana, of which one has started functioning from near Ghai Hotel. Two other windows are expected to open in a week near Arora Cinema and in Sherpur.

Divisional traffic manager SP Singh Bhatia said the main aim of opening these centres was to provide easy accessibility to tickets to passengers and to decrease the rush at the reservation counter of the railway station. The facility will also save people from falling prey to touts.

The YTSK centres will operate for a longer duration, i.e. 9 am to 10 pm on working days and from 9 pm to 8 pm on Sundays. The passengers, however, will have to pay some extra fee to the agencies: `40 for an AC category ticket and `30 for the sleeper class.

The contractor who opened the first centre, Chaman Lal Ghai, said they were getting a positive response from residents.

Passengers prefer to reserve tickets at booking windows instead of getting tickets online because if the "waiting" is not confirmed, then a person having reservation ticket from the window can board the train but the online ticket gets cancelled automatically.