Friday Night travel :-(
I've been traveling to chennai for the past two years every fortnight on weekends , I have had so many memorable and eventful trips, well the one I undertook last Friday was equally eventful.
I still remember how difficult it was to get a ticket to chennai on Friday nights in a ksrtc bus.
During my days as a project trainee , I have traveled to chennai in a lorry , shared van, sometimes even standing for 7 hours was fun at those times , you would have something to cherish at the end of the trip , a feeling of schievement , a feeling that you dint succumb to the pressure of not getting tickets and you showed your protest against those private operators who used to charge exorbitant rates:-).Well did I say getting tickets to chennai on a Friday is difficult ? Not any more; Asking me why ? Thanks to this organized selling of black tickets undertaken by KSRTC officials.
A Volvo ticket starts at 650 and goes upto 1000 on a Friday night ( Actual Cost - 450) Rajahamsa tickets cost start from 400 and go till 600 ( original cost - 200).These tickets are sold by touts who used to work for private transports canvassing people to board the semi sleeper's of sangeetha and other private operators,they used to get 30-50 bucks for selling a ticket for a private operators by selling KSRTC tickets they are assured of a minimum of 50-70 bucks per ticket.
Modus Operandi involves booking of tickets in every KSRTC bus that leaves on Friday nights to chennai.There are 4 people involved in selling these tickets in platform number 24 bangalore to chennai and they sell these tickets to people who are in desperate need of tickets and have not booked for the same 4 people have excellent rapport with every bus conductor and police constables in the bus stand and the office in charge of the platform of them get a share of the tickets sold big question is what is wrong in buying from them ? Well I would not like to be robbed either in broad day light or under the romantic moonlight. I would instead pay 100 bucks extra to Govt of Karnataka and travel in a special bus arranged by them in case of overcrowd.
No wonder why all KSRTC online counters say they don't have tickets for friday night busses.Almost 75-100 tickets are sold in black and atleast 200 bucks are made for every ticket. Doesn't the total amount collected look staggering now ? Now the big question is Can we stop these touts from selling tickets and making personal profits ? The answer is Yes ! How ?
1) Say no to black tickets. if no one buys those black tickets then they would have to incur personal loss of atleast 75 * 200.
2) Don't complain to local constables standing in Majestic bus stand.They are also hand in glove in this operation, they would threaten you for dire consequences like how i was threatened.If possible complain to Lok Ayukta or some other organization where u'r identity would be protected.
What next... Well am patiently waiting for the next Friday in my life !!!
Labels: My Thoughts
posted by Vasudev Udhatya @ 10:25 PM
Comments: 3
