Written by: Express News Service
2 min readPuneJul 14, 2010 04:09 AM IST
First published on: Jul 14, 2010 at 04:09 AM IST
Even as the Pune Mahanagar Parivahan Mahamandal Limited (PMPML) has extended the e-ticketing facility to all the 11 depots across the city,activists have questioned whether the practice of printing separate tickets for each individual even if they were travelling in a group is meant to benefit the contractors.
“PMPML has recently extended the e-ticketing facility to all 11 depots. Even though it apparently looks a positive decision there are several facts that cannot be overlooked. The same contractor who was allegedly indulging in fraud and misappropriation in e-ticketing,when the facility was introduced in the city has been given the contract,the PMP Pravasi Manch has said.
“No investigation was carried out then. No action was taken against the contractor,while a conductor was sent to jail for a few days. But the PMPML administration decided to continue with the same contractor and gave the contract to him. Hence,the problems continue as the e-ticketing machines hang and other technical glitches are seen.”
“It seems that the bulk ticket facility has been purposefully deleted from the software so as to earn profits for the contractors. If ten people are travelling together,the conductor prints ten separate tickets for each of them. The charges are also exorbitant,approximately 13 paise per ticket as against the earlier manual ticket,which cost 3 to 4 paise per ticket. The PMPML is losing at least Rs 5 lakh daily by way of printing individual tickets instead of bulk tickets when the passengers are travelling together,” said Jugal Rathi,convenor,PMP Pravasi Manch.
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