Railways make big bucks with Tatkal Seva

BANGALORE: The Indian Railways - thatgigantic organization that forms an integral part of the country's economic andsocial support system - is riding high on the revenue accrued through the TatkalSeva scheme. In the South Western Railways' Bangalore Divisionalone, the scheme is a major favourite with passengers. Statistics show thatdespite the limited number of Tatkal seats, in every consecutive month, alongthree major lines, the number of tickets in demand and those issued has alwaysbeen higher, in some cases, almost double. This, railways officialsexplain, is because when it comes to issuing tickets to those in the waitinglist, passengers in the Tatkal waiting list are given first preference overgeneral passengers. Tatkal tickets are available, at an additional fee, topassengers five days before the day of the journey. South WesternRailways charges Rs 150 for a sleeper class Tatkal ticket and Rs 200 additionalfee, more than the actual fare, for 2nd class and 3rd classA/C coach.Though the additional charges vary as per the peak season, officialsadd that there is a proposal to make the Tatkal fees uniform throughout theyear. The peak season of April, May and June, including a bit of the Dasararush, is when the railways see the highest demand for this service. Bangaloredivisional railway manager Akhil Agrawal said the Karnataka Express that runsbetween Bangalore and New Delhi, is almost always bookedcompletely.In December 2008 alone, the seats confirmed under tatkalscheme were over 7,900, while the numbers of tickets available were a wee bitover 6,900 under the sleeper class alone.The railways make a tidypenny out of the service. Last year, the revenuegenerated from Tatkal schemealone was over Rs 300 crore all over the country. Bangalore gets a fair chunk ofit too. Several complaints of discrepancies and passengers being left in thelurch continue to make some noise. But the tatkal scheme continues to be thatlast resort to millions of rail travellers.