Chennai: Early morning commuters at Chennai’s Park Town suburban station were left stranded and frustrated after a ticket counter staff was found asleep and allegedly refused to issue tickets. The incident has highlighted the gaps in passenger services of Southern railway. A video of the incident was widely circulated on social media. The incident happened in the wee hours of Friday when passengers reached the Park Town railway station to board the suburban train scheduled at 3.36am. The footage shows one of the passengers knocking on the glass panel of the counter to wake up the ticket issuer around 3.30am. But the ticket issuer got into an argument with the passenger, stating his duty hours start only at 3.35am. When the passenger says he has to walk all the way to platform 2, the ticket issuer yells at the passenger and asks him to complain wherever he wants. The passenger, who shot the entire episode on his phone, shared it on social media, and it went viral on Sunday.Railway officials said that action was initiated after verification of the CCTV footage. “He has been suspended from duty and enquiry is on as per railway conduct rule,” said an official. Southern Railway, however, did not reveal the identity of the ticket issuer. Railway officials said that the ticket issuer should have been ready to issue tickets at the counters and that sleeping in the cabin itself is wrong. “Further inquiry is on,” said the official. T Sadagopan from Pattabiram, a civic activist, said though Railways introduced RailOne app from Mar 1 to book unreserved tickets online and phased out the UTS mobile phone application, railways has not advertised it properly. “The advertisements and audio announcements at the station still say passengers can book tickets via UTS app. So, people are confused,” he said.
