Letters: Don't change the rules

It appears the Indian Railways (IR) is going to extremes. It has increased the reservation time from two months to four. This was not done to improve passenger comfort. How many people would be able to plan their journey four months in advance? How many employees can get their leave sanctioned four months in advance?

According to the new rules framed by IR, tickets for journeys up to 200 km can be booked only three hours in advance. At small stations where the number of trains is few, if a train is delayed by more than three hours, passengers would be required to buy fresh tickets as the earlier ones would have become invalid. Earlier, the validity of a ticket was one day and it was possible to buy return tickets too. Now the tickets can be bought at the boarding stations only, virtually removing the facility of buying return tickets. This means that passengers would have to stand in long queues at both stations. What is the idea in forbidding passengers to buy tickets from any other station other than the ones they are boarding from?

On the one hand we are talking of bullet trains, on the other, we are removing existing facilities and thereby causing hardships to passengers. Does the IR want people to avoid trains and travel by road, thereby increasing pollution and traffic jams?

I would like to request the IR to restore the earlier facilities and desist from implementing new rules that cause problems for passengers.

E M Adithyan, Edapal

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