Mumbai: As daily average of passengers surpass 55-57 lakh, Indian Railways to revive ATVMs

With the state government showing positive signs of opening up Mumbai and curtailing restrictions; it is certainly giving confidence to people to take the suburban local trains. The number of daily passenger has touched 55-57 lakh on an average and on days it has surpassed 63-64 lakh as well. Considering the presence of serpentine queues seen at ticketing windows; the Indian Railways will revive the automatic ticket vending machines (ATVMs) starting this week.

The ATVMs were shut and have become rickety with lack of required maintenance all through this Covid period since March 2020. The railways will appoint facilitators for operating these ticket vending machines who will issue tickets to passengers; thus ensuring that option of more ‘ticket windows’ gets opened up.

Confirming the same, Anil Kumar Lahoti the General Manager of Central Railway (who also holds additional charge for Western Railway) said earlier last week that they are certainly considering resuming ATVMs with help of facilitators.

However sources in railways said that they have also approached the Railway Board for the same considering the fact that before Covid, these facilitators used to be retired railway employees. “At present we are facing issues in getting people who can act as facilitators for ATVMs though we are confident of sorting it,” said a railway official.

Another problem lingering around for the rail authorities is the condition of these ATVMs. As they were shut since March 2020, these machines are crying out for maintenance and repairs before opening it for public use. The Western Railway has partially started 60 ATVMs at various stations with validators so that vaccination status of commuters buying tickets could be verified. However the officials there too are struggling with getting people to act as facilitators.

The disposal of ATVMs would ideally mean that more ticket windows of sorts shall be available for passengers. Moreover the facilitators would guarantee that multiple hands don’t touch the machines especially that Covid is still around, though its severity has gone down, according to experts. Also, the rail officials stated that people who do not have Smart Cards, do not buy tickets using ATVMs and so facilitators come handy.

AT present there are around 32-35 lakh daily commuters on CR and 27-29 lakh daily commuters on WR depending on day of work. The railway authorities expect the numbers to increase from March when the state government is expected to further reduce Covid induced restrictions. “At Thane station, the queue for ticket booking is perennially long. It's time for the railways to restore ATVMs as well,” said Nandkumar Deshmukh, president of Federation of Suburban Passengers Association.

The mobile ticketing App, called UTS is certainly doing well with almost 5-7 percent of them migrated to it during Covid period when provision for uploading double vaccination certificates was enabled in the UTS App. As for the facilitators, they too will ask for Universal Pass from those who approach them to buy rail tickets.

In the recent Budget, the Western Railway will be replacing 377 ATVMs for which an amount of Rs 50 lakh has been allotted in the outlay proposed in 2022-23. The total sanctioned cost for replacing all these ATVMs is more than Rs 6.70 crore. Likewise the Central Railway will be replacing 337 ATVMs, 110 station management consoles and 110 RFID card readers in 2022-23. For the coming financial year, they have proposed an outlay of Rs 49.22 lakh while the total sanctioned cost is Rs 6.30 crore. Another 605 smart card based ATVMs are expected to be bought at a cost of Rs 5 crore in 2022-23 on the Central Railway.