History repeats itself as railways allots upper berth to wheelchair-bound athlete-activist Suvarna Raj

NEW DELHI: Wheelchair-bound para-athlete and social worker Suvarna Raj booked a train ticket to Nagpur under the disabled quota on Wednesday. To her shock, she found a bitter episode of her past playing itself out once again. The ticket she got on the Delhi-Visakhapatnam Special had an upper berth reserved, exactly like four years ago. And as in 2017, this time too she claimed to have clearly mentioned she was a person with disability (PwD) when booking the ticket but had been allotted an impossible top berth by the rail system.
Raj said she eventually exchanged seats with a senior citizen, who too struggled to climb up to the top berth. The para-athlete suffers from 90% immobility of the lower limbs owing to a polio infection during childhood. “In the four years since I faced a similar issue and assurances were given by the then railway minister, Suresh Prabhu, it seems nothing has changed and PwDs still have to struggle for accessibility,” Raj told TOI.

In June 2017, Raj had faced such an ordeal on a Nagpur-Delhi train. After being allotted the upper berth, she had approached the travelling ticket examiner, but was told the coach was full and no alternative berths were available. Just months later in September, she again found she hadn’t been given the lower seat as appropriate for her PwD status.
On Wednesday, she boarded a train going to Nagpur to find that she had allotted an upper berth despite booking under the disabled quota. “In 2017, I had to travel sitting on the wet floor of the coach with my son,” she said. “This year, with the TTE not helpful at all, I had to exchange my seat with a fellow passenger. I hadn’t expected problems like these to occur again after all these years.” She rued this lack of compassion for travellers with disabilities.
When contacted, a railway official claimed that seat allocation was done by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), with the Railways having no role in the allotment process.
An IRCTC official told TOI that while the system has been fed information to automatically allot a lower berth if someone booked under the Divyang option, an upper berth was provided whenever all lower berths were already allotted. “This has not been done deliberately or to cause any inconvenience,” said the official. “The software has to allot a berth but if all lower berths are occupied, it has no option but to reserve an upper berth. In such cases, officials on board the train have been instructed to get the said seats adjusted.”