Madurai : Securing a confirmed seat on the Madurai-Chennai Tejas Express will become easier for passengers boarding from Madurai as the railways have withdrawn a separate reservation block available to passengers from Trichy. Passengers from Madurai passengers can now access a larger pool of seats.
However, Trichy had access to more than 400 seats against 300 available to Madurai passengers, restricting bookings from the train’s originating city. Seeking a 25-30% increase in Madurai’s quota, transport activist Mahendra Varman said the association wanted Southern Railway to examine where passengers actually boarded the train. A Southern Railway official said the separate Trichy block of 400 seats has now been removed. This will allow passengers from both stations access to more than 400 seats, with earlier bookings getting preference.
In a recent representation, Madurai Infrastructure Development (MID) association president P Balamurugan said the Tejas was introduced primarily as an originating-and-destination premium service for Madurai.
Balamurugan said Trichy already has several services to Chennai, including Rockfort, Cholan and Pallavan expresses, apart from passing trains. “Blocking such a large share for an intermediate station left Madurai passengers struggling for confirmed tickets,” he said. R Srinivasan, an advocate who frequently travels to Chennai, said securing Tejas tickets remained difficult despite tighter Aadhaar requirements for online railway bookings. “The train’s timings are convenient, particularly from Chennai, where it leaves at 6am and reaches Madurai before noon,” he said. “We sought an origin-versus-intermediate occupancy study and redistribution of seats based on actual demand,” he said. Varman said repeated representations to divisional and zonal railway authorities subsequently resulted in Madurai getting access to the full quota.
Business travellers, patients and professionals travelling the entire route were particularly affected, he added.