Nagpur Man Fined Rs 7035 for Computer Error on Train

N. Raghuraman, Management Guru

Every computer sees mistakes as black or white. That means either it is a mistake, or it is not. Either zero, or 100. There is no such thing as ‘a little mistake’ in their world. It is not even seen who is responsible for the mistake. Nor is it believed that ‘there can be a disturbance in the computer too, which can be called a mistake.’

Computers believe that they never make mistakes, so the responsibility for the mistakes made is put on humans. If you are not satisfied with this theory, then just ask M. Ramakant, a resident of Nagpur, Maharashtra, who recently learned this lesson the hard way.

On June 23, at 8 pm, he boarded 22691 KSR Bengaluru-Hazrat Nizamuddin Rajdhani Express. The 24-year-old youth was returning to his hometown Nagpur after leaving his job in Bengaluru. The journey was normal until the Traveling Ticket Examiner (TTE) arrived to check the tickets. Ramakant, sitting on the reserved berth in second AC, showed his e-ticket on the phone when asked by the TTE. He was surprised by what happened next.

TTE asked Ramakant to accompany him in the first AC coach. Another TTE came there. Both told Ramakant that his ticket was invalid and ‘he may have to pay a fine double the fare.’ The train number, destination, name and gender in the ticket were correct, but her age was written as ‘1’ instead of 24.

Initially Ramakant thought that perhaps there was something wrong with the system, because he had booked the ticket himself. He started wondering how he could write his age as ‘1’. But when I checked the e-ticket, I realized that it was a mistake. There could also be a typing error from their side.

Ramakant showed ID-proof to prove his age and identity. But officials said that the age information was not matching, hence the ticket was invalid. Ramakant argued that he had paid the fare of an adult passenger and did not take any concession by declaring his age as ‘1’. But TTE was not ready to listen or think rationally. After the debate, he was fined Rs 7,035 for traveling ‘without ticket’, taking his travel expenses to more than Rs 10,000.

There was no other option so Ramakant paid the fine and took the receipt from UPI. After reaching Nagpur on June 24, he lodged a complaint on ‘Rail Madad’ for refund of the fine. But the complaint was closed within a day. Railways in response said that the ticket checking staff has taken action as per the rules. The closing remark read that ‘Ticket scrutiny found that the age information given was incorrect and did not match the actual age of the person travelling.’

Railways said that after booking the ticket, passengers have to check the information and if there is any mistake, it has to be corrected at the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counter before the chart is prepared and the journey starts. In this case the discrepancy was not rectified before boarding the train.

Now my question is that even if there is some real mistake then why was the passenger taken separately to the first AC coach and surrounded? How did the IRCTC website book a ticket for a one year old child, allow him to travel alone and charge him the fare of an adult passenger?

If it was a technical glitch then why did the TTE not behave rationally like a human being and take the matter to senior officers for advice? Now as a reader of this column, you must have understood what precautions you should take in a world where humans are becoming irrational.

The bottom line is that When computers make mistakes, it is called an error. It’s humans who get it right because we’re supposed to be rational. The loss of this rationality is a matter of great concern for us humans.

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