A technical snag has hit the functioning of online ticket booking system of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC)
A technical snag has hit the functioning of online ticket booking system of the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) resulting in many users being denied service in the past few weeks. Many users, who tried to book tickets via online, either received a payment failure message or lost their money.
“I booked a ticket from KSRTC’s Saarathi reservation portal on October 11 and the payment mode failed due to some technical problems. Even after 10 days, I haven’t got the money refunded in my account. I have contacted the authorities many times and it was of no use,” said Sreejith from Pathanamthitta.
The 24×7 internet ticket booking facility of the KSRTC was introduced in 2009 with reservation available in 188 schedules.
It included 3 A/C Volvo, 15 A/C, 31 Super Deluxe Air Bus, 26 Super Express, 81 Super Fast, 28 Fast Passenger and 4 Ordinary services.
Along with it, KSRTC had introduced 18 online reservation counters at various centres across the state, including Thiruvananthapuram Central.
When contacted, KSRTC Executive Director (Technical) M T Sukumaran said that the Electronic Data Processing (EDP) Centre was the concerned facility. However, the EDP Centre seems to be unaware of any technical problems related to the system.
“There is a delay in the process. Other than that, no other problem has been noticed so far. Errors happen occasionally like in any other ticket booking system,” an official of the EDP Centre said.
“The server capacity of the Corporation is comparatively less. It leads to trouble when many users try to use the facility simultaneously. It leads to delay or even denial of service. I used to book my ticket to Bangalore regularly via the online system. But many times, the attempt had failed and then I resorted to the manual way, that is to reserve my seat half an hour before the departure time of the bus from the station,” Anand Raghuram, a techie, said.
“Usually, other ticket booking systems give the money back if the user loses it due to any technical snag. It leaves the user with no choice but to go for private bus services,” he added.
Source: New Indian Express
