Title - Central Railway plans massive recruitment of JTBS

Mumbai: Central Railway (CR) has drawn up plans to rope in huge number establishments under Jansadharan Ticket booking Sevak (JTBS) scheme in period of one year to reduce queues at booking windows.

A senior CR official said "Our aim is increase the number of JTBS from existing 75 to atleast 500 in a year. With this, we aim to sell around 1 lakh ticket as against existing sale of 28,000 ticket through JTBS per day."

CR registers 9 lakh ticket sales approximately per day out. Of these, around 6 lakh are sold through ticket counters, 2 lakh through coupons and 1 lakh through smart card operated Automatic Ticket Vending Machines and JTBS. Of the 429 booking counters in Mumbai division of CR, only 355 are operational at any given time, resulting in longer queues.

The official said, "Due to paucity of staff, booking windows at many stations remain underused. Hence, we have no option but to increase the number of JTBS."

In the past one-year, CR has increased the number of JTBS from 23 to 75. Under the 'Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Sewak' (JTBS) scheme, booking agents are allowed to charge a premium of Rs 1 per commuters on buying of unreserved ticket.