After walking for more than 50 kilometres, travelling by truck, waiting out Cyclone Nisarga's wrath by the staircase of a closed shopping mall for 12 hours, workers finally reached Bandra Terminus only to find that their railway tickets were not confirmed.
The last two days have been the most difficult forty-eight hours of Suraj Kumar's life. A daily wager in Maharashtra's Raigad district, Kumar had purchased a ticket to Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, on June 4, from a tout. He had been stuck in the state for the last two-and-a-half months and then was unsuccessful in his several attempts to register for a seat on one of the Shramik special trains. However, when he got his ticket, he found it was not confirmed.
"A tout helped me book the ticket. He obtained my details and assured me that the tickets would be confirmed once it was time for the train to leave. But my ticket has not been confirmed yet and I was not even allowed to enter the platform premises," a dismayed Kumar told The Free Press Journal on Thursday.
"There is a huge demand for tickets, with agents and touts charging commission at three times the actual price. Since bookings can only be done online, we don't have any option left but to approach a tout," Kumar said.
Now, he is stuck in Mumbai, trying to find a way back home. Earlier, when he had tried registering for a Shramik Special train, his application was not completed.
"I had applied to register myself for the Shramik special trains, but the administration never got back to me," said Kumar.
Bihar's Sunil Yadav similarly fell prey to a tout. A daily wager at a construction site, he had bought his ticket to Patna only to find that it was unconfirmed. He was supposed to have boarded his train on Wednesday night. His train is gone, he has been left behind.
"I had vacated the room in the chawl where I stayed in Mumbai. Now, if I can't go back to my hometown, I have no place but the railway platform to sleep," said Yadav.
"The process of registration for the Shramik Specials was haphazard. The authorities were not very forthcoming about the process. Now, we bought tickets, paying thrice the price. I don't have enough money left to buy another ticket," Yadav explained his predicament.
