Maharashtra: For Ganpati, railway tickets being booked now

In a bid to get confirmed train tickets during Ganesh Chaturthi, Mumbaikars are allegedly booking tickets from the place of origin while their boarding stations are Vasai from where trains converge to Central Railway line via Vasai-Diva-Panvel rail route.

Ahead of Ganesh Chaturthi festival in September many Mumbaikars visit coastal areas in Konkan to celebrate it with their families. The bookings have begun four months early and are getting full.

Sources said on May 1-2, train tickets got booked in less than 5 minutes. Within an hour or so, the tickets in trains like Konkan Kanya, Mandovi Express, Rajyarani express for August end went up to 400 waitlisted (W/L) for Sleeper class and was touching 300 W/L for 3AC class. The trains starting from CSMT and Kurla LTT too see a lot of demand for the season.

"I booked in one of the trains with starting station as Ahmedabad but boarding station as Vasai. This is because there is more seat quota available there than in Vasai," said A Parab, resident of Virar who is going to his hometown for Ganesh festival.

Another Mumbai resident who too made a booking for Ganesh festival said that the railways should keep a check on touts who use software to book tickets.

Recently the Railway Board had taken out a notification stating that passengers will be treated without a ticket if the place of boarding is different from the place of booking. However, if they want to travel like this then they will have to make changes online 4 hours before the journey, or inform the Reservation Officer at any computerised PRS office during working hours.