Woman Shares Video Of 'Overcrowding' Reserved Sleeper Coaches, Claims No Help From IRCTC

Travel on Indian trains has become synonymous with issues like overcrowding, lack of hygiene, and delays. People routinely share videos where despite being in a reserved coach, they do not get to sit in their booked seat. Recently, a popular X account shared a video in which a woman is seen standing in a sleeper coach.

She records a fully packed train coach and says that she had booked a sleeper seat but now the whole coach is full of people from the general coach. She adds that so far she has not had any help with IRCTC.

This video was captioned, “Kalesh inside Indian Railways over people are travelling without a ticket inside Sleeper-Coach.” So far, the clip has over 5.9 lakh likes since it was shared on June 9. This video prompted people to criticise the Railway Ministry for not improving the quality of train travel, despite repeated incidents of overcrowding.

An X user wrote, “After Govt formation, the government should take action on this, middle and lower middle class families facing lots of problems due to this. Make a strict rule with that increase of trains or general coaches.”

Someone admitted that they were forced to travel without appropriate tickets and wrote, “I have travelled in this way. The reason is simple: When a train is delayed by 10 hrs, what else can be done? I have to travel by train without a ticket! Why should I spend double? Most of the time the general coach is full, how can I travel in it with a suitcase?”

People also criticised the Railways for reportedly selling more and more general tickets regardless of the train capacity and wrote, “This is an issue with the Indian Railway System. They will issue any number of General tickets, what do you expect? People will sit where they will find a place. This is a multi-organisation failure.”

Someone else accused the Railways of maximising profit by cutting general coaches and wrote, “This is a very serious problem. Railways to increase their profit largely exchanged sleeper and general coaches with AC class. The result is that sleeper class is crowded by urgent general class travellers.”

Often delayed trains add to the overcrowding as people who missed their first train are forced to take another train to make it to their destination especially if they are travelling for an emergency or important matters like reaching an exam centre or attending a wedding.

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