Rly employees to ‘man’ automatic ticket machines

According to railway sources,“Central Railway has invited applications from its employees in various departments and once the employees are selected,they would be given identity cards. But they would work as facilitators after office hours and on holidays. Retired employees may also apply for the same.”

At present,there are 175 ATVMs at 50 stations. However,the initial response to the vending machines was not as good as expected. The main reason was many commuters,specially those not educated,hesitated to operate ATVMs. To overcome this problem,Central Railway allowed NGOs to operate the vending machines at stations,but some of them started overcharging from the commuters.

“NGOs were soon removed from the premises. This is the reason now administration wants to deploy railway employees to avoid any malfunctioning. Also,they are controlled by the administration. They will be given identity cards and Smart card so that the data on number of tickets sold could be maintained by the railways,“ said a senior official on condition of anonymity.

Some years back,CR had appointed voluntary booking clerks at stations who were given Rs 240 for a shift of 8 hours. But the response was not encouraging. But now railway employees feel this plan would be preferred as it gives them the liberty to choose the working hours. “There is no restriction of time. Retired employees can choose their timings as per their will and those who are working can also choose the number of hours they want to put in,” the official said.