Online booking in Railways-Boon or Bane?

[deepakraam]

Hi,
We have online booking for almost everything from travel to hairpin,houses etc.I will talk about online booking for travel.The online booking for Railways is more conformtable and affordable.Even layman can book the ticket using the railway website.Even they are providing other services like online cancellations,TDR in their websites.A passenger has to produce his/her identity only during the travel time and not at the time of booking.Ppl who dunt have identity proofs can still book their tickets online which they call as i-ticket and it will delivered through courier.This is all good.But the most bad thing is the presence of middlemen who are making a bulk booking of tickets esp during the festival timings and they are selling the tickets in the black market at a heavy premium.The facilities provided by the Railways are not reaching the ppl directly.This has to be avoided.So online booking in Railways-boon or bane?

Pour your views.

-Deepak.

[janani d]

Hi,
Online booking is a boon to everybody who packs their bag for a trip. It is quick and easy. But the bulk booking is an important issue to be addressed. Government should take necessary steps to prevent the agents and intermediaries from booking tickets in bulk. For example, a rule can be imposed like when you want to buy more than 10 tickets you should come in person and show the identity proof.

[CodeMangler]

well.. if there's a loophole, there'll always be people to exploit it..

but still, putting a cap on the number of tickets you can book online per journey ought to solve this..
in fact, some of the UK train ticket reservation systems actually do this, and it seems to work for them.. (though, I don't know if this is why they impose the restriction or if they ever had any issues with bulk booking)

[farhaanp5]

this is definitely a boon for the people. it is being used by a lot of people to book their ticket. they dont have to stand in a queue, lees paper work, less hassel, etc. so it is definitely a boon for the people. if someone books bulk tickets, then there has to be a cap, or strict checking by the T.C.'s so that there is no exploitation

[anyzen]

online booking is good for people. but bulk booking should be avoided by continuous inspection. The person who does bulk booking is booking in the different name. They sale the ticket in black market. and person who receives the ticket is having different name. by checking these two by TTR. we can identify the problem and root. and more over Our country has different ID card. It is useless. One ID card for all purpose should be introduced and can be used to book ticket and has be to bring during travelling for TTR inspection.

[ashpt33]

online booking is the next big thing happening in india

[vikrantverma]

it's a really good move, it will take indian railways to new heights.
this is IT enabling progress of indian railways.
will save a lit of time, and moeny of people.