Yesterday, I had to transport my vehicle from Warangal to
Chennai. As the most preferred option for any Indian is Railways, we went to
the railway station to book the vehicle. The drama of inconvenience starts from
then. I don’t know the case with the rest, but if it is a vehicle, someone
should travel in the same train as that of the vehicle. There are, may be, ten
trains from Warangal to Chennai but since the vehicle is to be loaded only in
three, I can travel only in one of those three trains. Now, if I have a ticket
in any of the other trains? Or even worse, I don’t want to travel at all? Well,
there is no way to prove I didn’t travel by that train if I have a general
ticket and that adds to expense and inconvenience. It simply means, I will have
to travel in general bogie even if I have a confirmed seat in a different train
or if I am travelling on a different day – no option or select another mode of
transport. Whatever the transport is, it is going to take a longer time.
When I came searching for the vehicle, first of all, there
will always be a tout – one of the biggest inconveniences in India. This time,
the tout who knows only Tamil and me, almost four or five languages excluding
Tamil, had a nice exercise walking the full length of the platform trying to
find out where the vehicle is and trying to communicate with me in a sane
manner. It turned out that it is near the central booking counter and we picked
it after an hour of me reaching the station. And all this happened because,
instead of loading it into one train, it was loaded into a different one. Or
may be, they felt this is a high value item and kept it safely. Or may be, it
will get wet in rain. Or a thousand such reasons.
Now comes the next phase of inconvenience – any vehicle in
transport will have all petrol drained out. The question is this. Where will I
get petrol when I collect my vehicle? As it turned out, there are no petrol
bunks within a kilometre of the exit gate of the railway station. Am I supposed
to drag the vehicle all along till the petrol bunk? And note, it’s illegal for
a person to carry petrol in a bottle – Molotov’s cocktail, may be? This means I
can’t go to a petrol bunk to get some fuel and then collect the vehicle. Well,
I had another bigger inconvenience because of no accountability as a part of
this drama, but there’s no point dealing about as it is not at all related to
the discussion.
This is something for the Railway Ministry to introspect –
1.
What is railways doing to increase it’s revenue
by end user freight, not business freight? Note that Railways is one of the
cheapest mode of transport and people prefer to use that if it is facilitative.
2.
In my case, the tout worked hard and he deserved
the money – he walked for almost 3 km with me, got the vehicle delivered and
dragged it for 3 km more to the petrol bunk. But, what is railways doing to
control the concept of touts? Am I that incompetent to get my things done
without a middleman?
Take
this specific instance of transporting a vehicle.
3.
Do we really need the customer to travel in the
same train? Wouldn’t a representative be sufficient at the other end? Even,
what’s the need of an original receipt? A duplicate scanned along with the
identity card specified before should be sufficient.
4.
Is there no way Railways can provide the
customers fuel, at least sufficient to take them to the nearest petrol bunk,
either free or at a charge? Or, can’t it allow one petrol bunk on railway
property, at a stone’s throw from the collection point with appropriate
directions?
5.
The penalty for being late – if the vehicle is
collected after six hours, the penalty will be ten rupees per hour. Are we
saying that this number is a deterrent going by the fact that a litre petrol
costs 70 rupees and a bus ticket from my house to Chennai Central costs 17
rupees? Either scrap off such fines or give some meaningful numbers. The cost
and effort of paperwork in case of penalty is going to be more than the money
being collected as in the case of salt tax.
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