Passengers face glitches on IRCTC site for Delhi-Jammu train

Ludhiana: As the railway ministry took the decision of running the first pair of the 15 special trains from Delhi railway station from Tuesday afternoon after opening online booking through IRCTC website, local travellers had to face a tough time for getting their ticket booked on the website for the train, which will run between New Delhi and Jammu.
Apart from that, the local railway authorities are in a dilemma on not receiving any specific guidelines on the issues related to managing passengers rush on city platforms after the railway ministry decision of commencement of limited number of trains on different routes. Besides, they say they have deputed most of their staff in work related to running of special Shramik trains from city the station for ferrying migrant labourers on a daily basis.
After hearing the reports about the Railways starting its limited train service for local passengers, several passengers opened the IRCTC website for booking their train tickets from Ludhiana to Delhi from Monday evening hours, but in vain as due to certain technical glitches the bookings could not be made on the portal.
A passenger, Jaswinder Singh, who wanted to get a train ticket for Delhi from Ludhiana, said, “I felt quite excited after I heard reports about the Railways resuming its service of special trains but when I opened the IRCTC official website for ticket booking there was technical error and I couldn’t make the booking.”
Speaking on the same lines, another passenger, Rajiv Sharma, who also in queue of getting a Jammu ticket, said, “The Railways should have done proper preparation before starting any service for local passengers because it causes lot of inconvenience to those who are waiting for resumption of train services. I have been trying to book the ticket for the past two hours but to no avail because technical error reappeared on the website.”
Sources in the railway department said, “After passengers failed to get their ticket booked on the IRCTC website following the reports of resumption of train service, they started making complaints on the railway ministry Twitter handle and started giving suggestions of doing proper planning before starting the railway services.”
On other hand, Ludhiana railway station director Tarun Kumar said that, “It’s an online booking site controlled from Delhi headquarters for managing the train ticket booking work. The Railways is considering passengers’ grievances on priority and everything will be resolved at the earliest.”
While evading queries on managing passengers on platforms after the start of railway service, the director said, “The higher authorities will soon deliver us specific guideline about how to manage passengers who will reach here on the special trains. We will work as per the guidelines for the betterment of the passengers.”