Railways scheme gives fillip to employment, ticket sales

New Delhi (IANS) - The Indian Railways have made more attractive their Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Sewak (JTBS) scheme, aimed at helping passengers book unreserved railway tickets and get them delivered, for a reasonable
fee, at their doorsteps through agents who are unemployed youth.

The scheme, introduced in 2008, envisages generating employment and business opportunity for unemployed youths by appointing them as neighbourhood ticket selling agents, a ministry release said Monday.

The JTBS are authorised to issue unreserved tickets through the computerized unreserved ticketing system (UTS). The terms of appointment for JTBS earlier stipulated furnishing a bank guarantee of Rs.40,000 in addition to a
security deposit of Rs.15,000, which has now been reduced to Rs.20,000 and Rs.5,000, respectively, the release added.

The new guidelines for JTBS, issued Aug 26, seek to provide incentives by authorising them to levy a service charge of Re.1 per passenger against the earlier norm of Re.1 per ticket.

The JTBS have been further authorised to issue seasonal tickets, the release said.

The new guidelines also allow JTBS operators to operate one additional counter provided the sale of tickets is more than 800 per day on each counter for at least a period of one month.

The JTBS appointment guidelines earlier provided for a tenure of contract for 2 years, which has now been enhanced to 3 years, renewable by another three years subject to satisfactory performance, the release said.