Metro ticket to the past

A hastily printed version of the suburban rail ticket was Metro Railway’s answer to the chaos and confusion triggered by its mismanaged transition to tokens and smart cards from a ticketing system that had served it well for 25 years. A manic first Monday without the familiar paper tickets with magnetic bars at the back saw commuters queuing up for up to an hour to buy a multi-ride smart card or around 20 minutes on an average to get a single-ride token. For many in the queues for tokens, a surprise as bewildering as it was bemusing awaited them. "I thought I was seeing things when the person at the counter gave me what looked like a local train ticket. It was only when I saw what was written on it that I was convinced it wasn’t a joke. I believe many railway stations don’t issue such tickets anymore. So why has Metro rail adopted it?” wondered Chaitali Dey, who boarded a train at Kalighat. Metro Railway spokesman Protyush Ghosh said the printed card tickets were meant to ease the snaking queues till Metro Railway received more token dispensers. A colleague who did not wish to be named said the decision to distribute card tickets was taken at a meeting only last evening. The haste showed. The fare printed on a Kalighat-Esplanade ticket (see picture) was Rs 3, which is a rupee short of the price for the shortest Metro ride. Smart cards being the only escape from the chaos that seems to be here to stay, the longest queues were in front of the counters where these were being sold. Commuters crowding the stationmasters’ rooms across stations to get immediate refunds on their old smart cards compounded the chaos. “Everyone wanted to get back their money today itself. There were no less than 30 people in almost every stationmaster’s office through the day,” a senior officer said. Unable to cope with the rush, the Metro brass decided not to give refunds from Tuesday for a fortnight. “We had initially decided to continue the refund process till August 15. But we are keeping it on hold for now. It will resume on August 16,” public relations officer Ghosh said. Metro Railway has so far installed 148 token dispensers and 268 flap gates across its 23 stations from Dum Dum to Kavi Subhash (New Garia). An official said 114 of these token dispensers were being used simultaneously. The transport lifeline had promised to install 207 token dispensers and 280 flap gates by the time the token system completely replaced paper tickets and turnstiles. On Monday, officials said the defunct turnstiles and old ticket machines would be replaced with token dispensers and flap gates in a week. “Work has already started and we will remove all the old infrastructure in a week’s time,” Ghosh said. Metro Railway has procured 4.25 lakh tokens from the Centre for Railway Information Systems, of which 3.5 lakh are in service. “We will add another 2.75 lakh tokens to ensure smooth services,” Ghosh said. The Metro authorities are banking on smart-card sales to ease the rush in the other counters over the next few days. “We sold 25,000 smart cards on Saturday and Sunday. On Monday, we sold 35,079 of them till 7pm,” Ghosh said. The microchip-fitted token, which Delhi Metro has been using since its inception, had made its Calcutta debut on July 8.