Amid chaos, railways offers balm to harried passengers

Amid confusion over the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes, the Indian railways has emerged as one of the bright spots with authorities making provisions for providing passengers with not only tickets at the old notes but also food in both trains and stations.

A senior railway official said minutes after the Prime Minister’s address to the nation on Tuesday, circulars were sent to all zonal general managers and chief commercial managers that exact change should be given to people using the demonetised denominations and the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes should be accepted by registered caterers in not only trains but also on platforms.

“Despite banks being closed today, we are in talks with them (banking authorities) to get rupee notes of lower denominations like Rs 10, Rs 50 and Rs 100 to manage our booking counters,” the official said.

Having witnessed bulk buying of tickets, the railway authorities have decided to ask for PAN cards for those spending above Rs 50,000 on tickets and some kind of identity proof for those buying tickets worth Rs 15,000.

The officials said that railways has asked the Reserve Bank of India for help on Thursday, though it could tide over the problems on Wednesday by not depositing its revenue amount last night.

In a move against black money and corruption, government has banned the use of high denomination notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000 since Tuesday midnight.

However, these notes will be allowed to be used at a few places like airports, hospitals, petrol pumps and railway stations till November 11 as the government has exempted these services from the ban for two days to prevent inconveniences to common man.

Ticketing business of around Rs.100 crore is conducted within the Railways on any particular day out of which about Rs 40 crore is over the counters and rest is through on e-tickets.

“Despite banks being closed today, we are in talks with them (banking authorities) to get rupee notes of lower denominations like Rs 10, Rs 50 and Rs 100 to manage our booking counters,” the official said.

Having witnessed bulk buying of tickets, the Railway authorities have decided to ask for PAN cards for those spending above Rs. 50,000 on tickets and some kind of identity proof for those buying tickets worth Rs. 15,000.

“Earlier, it was inflow and outflow of currency notes at equal pace but now the outflow is heavier”, the official said.

“The RBI regional offices have promised to give us smaller currency notes”.

Railway officials were also carrying out verification of people who had bought tickets for more than Rs 50,000.