Anand, 7 June 2012

The city of Anand in central Gujarat got a mobile ticket van facility for easy availability of reserved and unreserved railway tickets. Minister of state for Railway and Anand MP Bharatsinh Solanki launched the van in presence of the railway officials and local people today.

The van will travel to various areas well away from railway stations as per the daily schedule.

Western Railway archives state that such vans used to run about a century ago when WR was called the Bombay Baroda and Central Indian Railway.

“Such vans used to run during the early part of the 20th century, in about 1910 to 1920s, almost exactly a century ago. Those days such vans ran in Bombay city too as the Bombay City Improvement Trust had opened up new areas of Dadar-Matunga and other farther suburbs and the railways were asked to encourage people to move to those suburbs,” state old railway records.

“Ticket vans offered concessions like return tickets and many of them were run on festive occasions to encourage rail travel,” add the archives.

The mobile van will operate in one shift from 10.00am to 6pm for issuing rail reservation tickets in Anand and nearby locations.

Termed as Mushkil Aasaan, the mobile van service is intended to start a new chapter in providing convenience to the passengers by reaching out to them so that they can easily get their tickets.

Such vans have been introduced in major cities like Delhi and Kolkata too. With this facility, the passengers will not have to travel long distances or stand in queues at reservation office,” said another senior official.

‘The “Mushkil Aassan” mobile van has been introduced with the idea of taking the issuance of computerized tickets both reserved and un-reserved to the grass roots and it will work at different locations from Monday to Saturday, while Sunday will be utilized for its maintenance. The cost of the ticket will be the same as that of tickets purchased from the usual Passenger Reservation System counters. The first ‘Mushkil Aasaan’ van was launched by then Railway minister Mamta Banerjee in January 2010 in Kolkata.

Inauguration after two months delay, when vacation is over

There was too much rush for railway tickets at Anand railway station during summer vacation, and mobile ticket van was arrived two months back, but due to busyness of minister Bharatsinh Solanki, the van couldn’t be inaugurated and was lying idle at the railway station. It was the local BJP that raised voice against the delay and then Shri Solanki spared some time to inaugurate the van. But this happened only after the vacation is almost over.

🗃️ This story is from our archives and may contain outdated information.