The Indian Railways will now be providing more facilities to women passengers at reservation counters, including separate reservation counter at each station that would be earmarked for ladies if the average demand per shift is not less than 120 tickets.

An official press release said that ladies may be allowed to purchase tickets from these reservation counters irrespective of passengers for whom the reservation is being sought. However, no other persons will be allowed to purchase ticket for them from these counters.

In case, there is no justification for earmarking of exclusive counter for ladies, the requests received from ladies should be dealt with along with the reservation requests of the specific categories viz. senior citizen, physically handicapped, ex. MPs, MLAs, accredited journalists, freedom fighters etc.

At those reservation offices where separate reservation counters have not been earmarked for ladies and also those locations which have not been computerized, ladies/female passengers should not be compelled to join the general queues and be attended to separately at the same counter as for general passengers.

A suitable notice board about the availability of this facility should also be displayed near the reservation counter. This facility will however be available only from 11:30 hours to avoid misuse of this facility by unscrupulous elements to block accommodation during opening hours of general and Tatkal reservation.

As far as earmarking of separate unreserved ticket counters for ladies, Zonal Railways have been asked to assess the demand and do the needful based on the same.