Whilst LJN is pretty empty at morning, during afternoon there is an outflow of trains from there, leading to large nos of passengers. Two UTS machines are there but both didn't have any operators for some time. One person's smart card had ran out of money. Another operator came after some time but he could barely handle the crowd.
As for traditional ticket counters, the railway employees should be admonished for not performing their tasks. A lady was giving tickets when suddenly she vanished and after sometime they asked us to queue...
more... in the adjacent lane, which already had a long one.
I can't sympathize with that lady because it's not like she is working hard or for long hours. The peak time at LJN is only from 1400 - 1600 hrs when the major trains leave. If IR can't even manage employees to work for TWO consistent hours, I don't know what to say.
They talk about productivity, but on the ground, I see them standing around doing nothing in the backyard instead of cutting tickets for the snaking queue. If they can't cut a simple ticket, maybe it's time to cut them out of jobs. There are many people who will work very easily for TWO hours which is well within Indian legal labor laws.
In contrast, atleast LKO NR has many people manning the UTS counters. IR can jab all it want about online ticketing and what not but FORCING people to do online ticketing is one thing and making them OPT is another. They are currently doing the former by making it extremely hard to get a normal ticket.