CCTVs, jammers-equipped reservation counters by railways to rein in touts

NEW DELHI: Big and small railway ticket reservation centres and booking counters in railway stations in Delhi will now be equipped with CCTVs and jammers to prevent touting. A circular in this regard was issued by the railway board four days ago. It asked major stations to battle the menace of touting by monitoring the activities of booking clerks. Officials are now poised to return to their offices after a long spell of holidays and begin work of issuing tenders to install the cameras.

The circular from the railway ministry has asked stations to install the cameras that will send live feed at the time of booking reservations. Commercial inspectors of railways and divisional railway managers will be made responsible for monitoring footage of CCTVs during peak hours and on daily basis. "Touting has become a huge issue. Very recently, we heard rumours that even Tatkal tickets were being blocked by touts and sold on a premium, so this move was made," said a senior official.

Officials in Delhi say that some of the reservation centres and railway stations are already equipped with CCTVs and jammers, and now the remaining stations will be covered. "Now we will try to cover the remaining stations as well," said a Northern Railway official.

Another measure recently adopted is the doing away of RTSAs or Railway Travel Service Agents. "There were about 200 RTSAs in Delhi operating legally, each of whom was allowed six tickets each. But they had grown in influence over the years and were getting away with too many tickets. Vigilance proposed to do away with all of them. All 200 were debarred from blocking tickets a few months ago."