Booked rail ticket via tout? Your trip may get cancelled

KOLKATA: Soumitra Roy of Kasba and his family of five had completed their hectic tour of Darjeeling and Dooars and were hoping for a comfortable train journey back home from New Jalpaiguri. Despite the rush, they had managed to secure ‘confirmed’ berths on the Teesta Torsa Express. However, they were in for a rude shock when they found their berths occupied on boarding the train.
“I immediately messaged our PNR numbers to 139 and was shocked when I received a reply informing that our tickets had been cancelled. I tried calling up the agent through whom I had booked the tickets, but his phone was switched off. There was no response from his office either. We had no option but to remain on the train. The travelling ticket examiner was helpful when we showed him a printout of our e-tickets, but could not allot berths. Even he wasn’t sure how the tickets got cancelled, but he allowed us to remain in the space near the toilets,” Roy said.
Once back home after the horrendous journey, Roy went to the agent’s office only to find it locked. Locals informed him that it had been raided by railway authorities as the agent was booking tickets with fake personal IDs on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website. Roy’s tickets had also been booked using such IDs and had got cancelled after the raid. The agent had charged him Rs 500 extra for each ticket.
Rajeev Sarkar of Jessore Road was a tad lucky, though. Sarkar had planned a family trip to Araku and booked tickets till Visakhapatnam on Chennai Mail via an agent. Although the tickets had been ‘confirmed’, he decided to run a final check before leaving for the station. He, too, was shocked to find the tickets cancelled, but was saved the hassle of travelling to Howrah. He finally travelled using Tatkal tickets the next day. The agent is still absconding.
Railways officials said they regularly conducted awareness campaigns, urging people not to book tickets through agents who are not registered with the Railways or IRCTC. “A list of all authorized agents can be found in timetables, as well as online. All others who claim to book tickets for a charge are actually touts. If raids are conducted then all tickets booked through fraudulent means get cancelled” an official said.
On Saturday, another round of raids yielded 107 e-tickets worth Rs 2.7 lakh. As touts do not use the valid mobile numbers of customers, the victims don’t receive messages of the tickets getting cancelled.