Train passengers with offline tickets can now change boarding factors

By Express News Service

CHENNAI:  Nearly three years after introducing the availability to vary the boarding station for e-tickets on-line, the IRCTC prolonged the ability to paper tickets, as nicely, since Sunday. At current, solely e-ticket holders are allowed to vary their boarding station by the IRCTC portal or by dialling 139 earlier than the preparation of the primary chart, which suggests 4 hours earlier than the scheduled departure of the practice.

The facility is accessible for common and tatkal tickets, not for present bookings. Tickets which are booked after the preparation of the primary chart and half-hour earlier than the departure of the trains are referred to as present reserving tickets. Until now, passengers who maintain paper tickets needed to submit a written request on the practice originating station 24 hours earlier than the departure of the practice for altering the boarding level.

Now, to vary the boarding level for paper tickets, the consumer can go to www.irctc.co.in and on the house web page, beneath the primary menu, click on on ‘extra’, beneath which choose ‘Counter Ticket Boarding Point Change’. The cell quantity submitted on the time of reserving will likely be validated by an OTP, after which the choice for altering boarding stations will likely be displayed.

The provision for altering the boarding stations for e-tickets got here into impact on May 1, 2019. “Like e-tickets, passengers are allowed to change the boarding station only once and only before the first chart is prepared,” a railway official stated.

As per official knowledge, greater than 65 per cent of tickets are booked on-line.

However, the transfer will present some reduction to a bit of passengers who e book tickets at counters, say rail customers. S Radhakrishnan of Avadi, a commuter, stated, “During festival seasons or VVIP visits, city roads are congested. This new provision will benefit passengers residing in the outskirts of the cities like Chennai, Coimbatore, Madurai, and other places.”

Another passenger, S Aravind Kumar of Thiruvalam, stated, “When four or five people book tickets together but have to board from different stations, there is no provision for that. The system should be upgraded to allow one or two persons to change boarding station.”