Mumbai: Railway ATVMs not in sync with reality, says Munnabhai actor

Khurshed J Lawyer says time on ticket vending machines across railways stations or across ATVMS at same station do not match actual time, and most run slow; records video to prove his point

The Railways would have otherwise got away with its so called technical issues, glitches and poor quality services if commuters like actor Khurshed J Lawyer alias Swami from Munnabhai MBBS did not take up these matters every now and then.

Lawyer, who is known for bringing these issues to the fore, has found out that the time on most of the automatic ticket vending machines (ATVMs) across railway stations is not in sync with the actual time and in some of them the clocks are slow. Due to this "technical glitch", as the Railways put it, passengers are losing out on time because the tickets mention that the journey needs to start within an hour of purchasing it.

Two days back, Lawyer took a video of four ATVM machines at Dadar railway station to prove that each of them showed different timings at the same instance. Speaking to mid-day, he said, "The timings on these machines are not in sync with the real time, and this often leads to loss of time and money for commuters. Two days back, I noticed this at a number of railway stations. In my opinion, it is a big scam wherein innocent commuters are being looted."

Explaining the matter further, he said, "Most people get tickets from the machines without checking the time mentioned on it. Little do they know that the time printed on it is anything but the real time. So, if someone buys the ticket at 12.10pm, but the machine prints 11.45am, it will be valid only till 12.45pm and not 1.10pm." "I made a video at platform number 6 of Dadar railway station around 10.07pm on April 22. The timings on four machines were different," Lawyer added.

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When contacted, Kartikey Singh, general manager, Centre for Railway Information Systems Mumbai, said, "The ATVMs get synchronised with the Network Time Protocol servers every 24 hours. However, it seems that the machines are facing some lag, which may be due to the batteries. The Railways need to check this and fix it at the time of maintenance."

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Khurshed J Lawyer

However, Central Railway Chief PRO Sunil Udasi, said, "The time printed on the tickets is the network time of the machines. No one can manipulate the network time. It's centrally controlled by the CRIS and updated daily."

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