PUNE: Amit Gadgil, a working professional, was left inconvenienced when the IRCTC issued him a confirmed train ticket with a seat number that no longer existed on that particular train.
On July 9, Gadgil was travelling from Pune to Mumbai on the 12128 Pune-Mumbai CSMT Intercity Express. “I booked my ticket on IRCTC. As per the confirmed ticket, I was allotted seat number 105 of the D5 compartment. However, when I boarded the train, I could not find the seat. The entire chair-car compartment had seats from 1 to 102 only. I got off the train and found a ticket checker. He told me to get back on the train and wait for another ticket checker who will look into the matter,” he said.
Gadgil returned to the compartment and waited. However, no railway official turned up. Soon, the train started. “I was lucky as I didn’t have any luggage. I had to stand for more than an hour until the train reached Lonavla. There I found a ticket checker who took me to the D7 compartment and told to sit on seat number 43. When I sought an explanation, he had none. He just said that the rakes of the train were new and this could have led to the confusion. If the rakes had been changed, the officials could have released a reservation chart for the passengers,” Gadgil said.
“This seems to be a technical glitch. We will be holding an investigation into the matter,” Pune division PRO Manoj Jhawar said.
Last month, all the old rakes of the train were replaced with new LHB (Linke Hoffman Busch) coaches.
