E Arun & Tarun Kartick
Port Blair, Jul 11: It seems that the Transport Department is always in news but for all wrong reasons. A few days back Andaman Sheekha had reported that how passengers in some STS buses have to sit inside the buses with open Umbrella, as the windows of many buses are unable to protect passengers from heavy rain.
Now it has been learnt that the ticket reservation system of Transport Department is giving nightmares to public. A fresh case of issuing double tickets for same seats of STS Express bus has now left public shocked.
Recently, on 3rd June 2013 in Bambooflat Express Bus, which plies between Bambooflat and Rangat, one passenger found that seats reserved for his family have been occupied by others, who also had a valid ticket for the same seats, issued by the Transport Department.
According to eyewitnesses, the passenger with ticket No. 119520, 119521, 119522 was shocked to see that and he had to stand all the way to Rangat despite of the fact that he had booked valid tickets in advance.
Moreover, it has been learnt that instead of helping the passenger the conductor of the bus had reportedly misbehaved with the passenger, who was already in trouble managing luggage, his wife and his infant baby.
This is not the first such incident, nearly two years back Andaman Sheekha had reported about similar incident in Billyground area. This shows that something has gone terribly wrong with the ticket reservation system of STS. There are also possibilities of selling tickets in black in STS, which might have resulted in this incident.
Today Andaman Sheekha contacted Mr. G.L. Meena, IAS, Secretary cum Director of Transport Department in this regard. Expressing total ignorance about this issue Mr. Meena said “I do not have any information regarding the double issue of tickets and I don’t think that such an incident happened.”
Further he added that if such an incident happens the victim should inform the State Transport Department about it immediately. “We will verify the fact and if found guilty we will definitely take stringent action against the responsible employee,” Mr. Meena added.
This is sad that such issues of gross negligence do not even come to the notice of Secretary level officers and Chief Secretary. One wonders that if Administration behaves like an Island, what will be the fate of poor Islanders.
