Mindless Railway Department - Changes in Tatkal

When Lalu Prasad Yadav was the railway minister, everybody used to praise him. I could never understand why, everyone was praising, because he had not done anything. Everything that people boasts about him were done in the Vajpayee government itself (including online reservation, tatkal etc.). One reason might be, after he became the railway minister, the profits increased a lot. After Mamatha Banerjee became the railway minister, and started destroying the railways, I realized how great Lalu Prasad Yadav was.

When everybody has decided to destroy the system, and if one does not do anything and sits idle, then he/she is considered as the person who has done real development in that system. [I am not sarcastic about this.]

I can never understand the government's policy on Tatkal tickets. They say that, they are coming up with policies to reduce the misuse of Tatkal tickets. Now, they have reduced the time duration for Tatkal tickets to one day, and changed few other things like, in one ticket, one can book only for four people, and the identification details have to be provided at the time of booking e-ticket.

The simple way to reduce the misuse is, increasing the price for Tatkal. If they make the price as double or triple to the normal ticket, then the misuse would be reduced automatically. If somebody needs to travel so urgently, then they should pay more. They cannot pay less and travel like others who booked 2 months before. [By the way, there is emergency quota to cater the emergency needs, and Tatkal quota need not be linked with that.]

There are two reasons for any black market. One is insufficient supply and another is, price is significantly lower than what the consumer can pay. If the system is in this state, then it is very difficult to remove the black market, without increasing the supply or price. If the railway department increases the price, then the black market would reduce, and it increases their revenue, by which they can improve the services of the passengers.

India is developing at night, when all the politicians are sleeping.