- I Paid A Bribe
- 12 years ago
- 1930 views
Bribed TC for two seats in reservation.
I'd gone with my mother for post-funeral rites of a relative in Surat on 8th Mar 2012. While coming back to Mumbai, all the trains were said to be fully booked - the person handling the current reservation counter (which gives leftover reserved tickets one hour before the train departs) said that they did not have any reservations in any of the classes - General Sleeper to AC. We thought of taking the luxury bus, but there was no surety of getting a seat there (I'd experienced it the last time).
We took general class(unreserved) tickets and went to catch the train. The unreserved compartments were filled to capacity - there was barely any room to stand, forget getting a seat. My mother is 56 yrs old and has a heart condition, so there was no chance of taking the unreserved route.
A relative who had come to see us off spoke to a coolie who said he could get us 2 seats for Rs.400. He settled for 200 for 2 seats and as I was wondering how he'd be able to do that, he walked up to the TC, introduced us and gave him our (unreserved) ticket. The TC promptly gave us two seats (the ones along the corridor; parallel to the train)!
There were people who were in the waiting lists who were denied seats. If I remember correctly, the compartment in which we were seated had a few more empty seats; this, while people who could not get a reservation were travelling like cattle in the unreserved compartments!
Do the railways realize how much money they lose because of this corruption?