The Indian Railways is at times unable to accommodate emergency quota requests received from Members of Parliament relating to ‘other-than-self’ travel when demand exceeds the availability, Union Minister of Railways Piyush Goyal informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply on Wednesday.
Mr. Goyal was responding to a question raised by two BJP MPs who had contended that they had had to face the embarrassment of feeling “ashamed” in front of their relatives after wait-listed train tickets were not confirmed despite requests made by them.
In a written question, the MPs — Upendra Singh Rawat, MP from Barabanki (Uttar Pradesh) and Kaushal Kishore, MP from Mohanlalganj (Uttar Pradesh), had sought to know “whether the Government is aware that the wait-listed tickets of the Uttar Pradesh and Bihar bound trains on the occasion of Holi, Dussehra, Diwali and Chhath Parv, are not being confirmed on the request of Hon’ble MPs due to which they have to feel ashamed in front of their relatives.”
The two ruling party members also asked the Minister to provide clarity on the rules for ticket confirmation under ‘VIP quota’ for all MPs.
Observing that the demand for reserved accommodation on Indian Railways is not uniform throughout the year and varies from time to time as well as train to train, Mr. Goyal said during peak rush periods, including Holi, summer vacations, Pooja/Dussehra holidays, Diwali/Chhath and winter vacations, accommodation in popular trains gets exhausted within a short time.
The minister added that to meet the urgent travel requirements of high official requisition (HOR) holders, which includes central government ministers, Supreme Court and High Courts judges and MPs, a limited number of seats have been earmarked as emergency quota in different trains and in different classes.
“This quota is released by the staff in accordance with the priority as per ‘warrant of precedence’ and well established practice being followed since long. At the time of allotment of accommodation, emergency quota is first allotted for self-travel of HOR holders/Members of Parliament, etc., strictly as per their inter-se seniority in ‘warrant of precedence’,” Mr. Goyal explained.
Following this, other requisitions received, including that from Members of Parliament, are considered and the remaining quota is released taking into account various factors like official status of passengers travelling, nature of urgency like travelling on government duty, bereavement in the family, sickness and job interview.
“While the requests received from Members of Parliament for their self travel are complied with, in case of requests forwarded by them for other-than-self travel, at times, it is not feasible to accommodate all such requests when the demand exceeds the availability,” the minister stated.
