Commercial Clerks of Southern Railway worried over glitches in digital ticketing

Chennai Division of Southern Railway faces glitches in digital transactions, causing delays and passenger inconvenience at booking counters.

With the Chennai Division of Southern Railway embarking on a mission to promote digital transactions, Commercial Clerks are complaining of glitches that are delaying issue of tickets resulting in passengers often entering into arguments at booking counters.

According to railway sources, the Chennai Division implemented Quick Response (QR) code payment systems for booking tickets, luggage, parcels, and other allied services to encourage cashless transactions and improving passenger convenience across all stations.

QR Code devices were installed at all ticket counters, including those for unreserved tickets, platform tickets and Passenger Reservation System (PRS) tickets. “This is mainly aimed to streamline the payment process, avoid issues related to cash handling and facilitate quicker ticket issuance,” Southern Railway said.

However, Commercial Clerks, especially members of the Southern Railway Mazdoor Union, have expressed concern over glitches like slow network speed or payment failures that were causing inconvenience to passengers. Since there were no separate counters for issuing tickets via QR Code, movement in the general queue was often getting slowed down due to technical failures.

“Many passengers are receiving payment failure message on their mobile phones. Some are even claiming that money got debited from their bank account and demanding a ticket. By the time we make them understand the factual position, considerable time is lost and others waiting for their turn get worked up. There have been several instances where passengers who rushed to purchase tickets in the last minute complained of missing their trains,” a senior Commercial Clerk told The Hindu’

The sources said about 25,000 tickets were issued at the Dr MGR Chennai Central and Chennai Egmore railway stations alone on a daily basis. “A majority of the passengers purchase tickets to travel in suburban trains for which the minimum fare of ₹5. Not many of them have smart phones or internet enabled digital transaction facilities. How can we insist on making QR code payment for ₹5 or 10?” asked a Commercial Clerk who said that senior officers had set a 10% as minimum digital payment target on the total sale of tickets in each counter.

While railway authorities said the facility was to promote faster and smoother service aimed at reducing waiting period at counters, Commercial Clerks say the accepting digital payments in general queue was actually delaying the process. Southern Railway spokesperson did not respond to questions on the issue.