Surat: During the festival of Diwali, issuing of platform tickets was stopped at several railway stations of Western Railway including Surat, Udhana. Along with this, a ban was imposed on the loading of goods in the train. But now as the crowd has reduced, platform ticketing has been started and baggage has also started to be loaded into the train.

The migrants living in Surat regularly visit their hometown for the festival of Diwali. Now as re-development work is going on at Surat railway station, all trains bound to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand were run from Udhna. During the week of Diwali, Udhana and Surat railway stations were heavily crowded with lakhs of passengers. At such times the crowd is likely to double if the relatives coming to drop the passengers arrive on the platform. In order to reduce the crowd on the platform, the railway department decided to stop issuing platform tickets at railway stations including Surat, Udhana. Along with this, due to goods lying on the platform, it is difficult to move the passengers and therefore a ban was also imposed on the loading of goods in trains till November 8.

However, now that the crowd has reduced, the railways has started issuing platform tickets again. Along with this, baggage has also started to be loaded in the passenger trains.

Passengers will now be able to go up to the platform to drop off their relatives when platform ticketing is introduced. It may be mentioned here that for the last three-four years platform tickets have been stopped for one week to ten days during Diwali and summer vacations. DeshGujarat