 "Passengers give 500 rupees for train ticket at a booking window")
With a sudden rush for railway bookings through the ticket counter, there was shortage of lower denomination currency with the Indian Railways forcing it to knock at the doors of the Reserve Bank of India.
The shortage came a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation of Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 currency notes with effect from Friday night. A window of 72 hours has been given to transfer these notes through railway stations. “There has been a sudden rush on our ticket counters as we have seen a 40 per cent increase on counter tickets under Passenger Reservation System (PRS) till 2 pm today. Somehow, we managed the business today. We have approached the RBI to issue fresh lower denomination notes from its regional centers to the concerned railway zones with immediate effect,” said Mohammed Jamshed, Member-Traffic, Railway Board.
On a daily basis, the Railways generate about Rs 126 crore in ticket revenue. Out of this, about Rs 78 crore comes from PRS and the remaining Rs 48 crore from non-PRS route. Out of the PRS revenue, Rs 45 crore goes to e-ticketing and about Rs 33 crore goes to on the counter ticketing.
“Though we are facing difficulties, we have asked our booking officers to accept higher denomination currency. There have been instances where people are coming with Rs 1,000 notes to grab a Rs 10 platform ticket. This is quite an unusual situation. We have already instructed even catering services to accept these higher denomination notes, but with a receipt,” said Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu.
According to an official close to the development, a cap may be applied for issue of waitlisted tickets in higher class, if there is an abnormal surge in bookings. Railway officials have been instructed that any cash transaction above Rs 50,000 should be permitted only after obtaining a copy of the PAN card.
A station cell has also been setup in the Railway Ministry, which is in touch with zonal railways and is taking a two-hour update of any unusual transactions that may be taking place. “There was huge outflow of smaller currencies at several counters. We have a certain amount of cash that goes to the banks and a portion of previous day’s earnings is withheld which came into use today,” Jamshed added. Instructions have been given to stations and booking offices to hold back cash collected to tide over the crisis.
On an average day, the total PRS reservation comes to around 13 lakh, out of which 7.5 lakh comes under e-ticket category and the remaining 5.5 lakh is the ticket being reserved on counter.
