The Union of Railway Station Masters says that the railway authorities have not taken steps to solve the crisis of reservation of train seats online.
Its chairman Sumedha Somaratne says that he refuses to discuss this issue under the powers of an Assistant Transport Superintendent.
Commenting further on this, he said that the Railway Department has become a place where many frauds and corruptions take place.
The department employees who responded to our inquiry about this say that they cannot rule out the allegations of large-scale frauds in the reservation of seats through the online system. They also mention that the entire number of seats are filled within a few minutes after the date-specific seat allocation is opened, but sometimes the train runs with empty seats.
A railway station master who replied to the inquiry about the reason for this said that because the organizations providing travel services systematically reserve all the seats, it is becoming a dream for an ordinary passenger to reserve a seat in a train like Kandy Badulla, Colombo Bandulla.
He also said that the reserved seats are sold to tourists for several times high Price more than the amount paid to the department, and this causes damage to the reputation of the department in addition to the injustice done to the common passengers.
He said that the department will not incur any loss due to the online system of seat reservation and emphasized that the ability of an ordinary passenger to reserve a seat will be lost.