My Rustic Journal

This time round while traveling back to Anand from Ahmedabad, it was decided not to wait in the long queue and travel ticket-less instead. No TTC wanders into the general compartment anyway! So this is where I get this idea from. I was wondering if we could possibly empower the chai wallahs and other people who sell assorted goodies in the train, to actually check tickets!?! Well, it sounds absurd at first read but then, think about it. We already have a section of salesmen who are registered under Railway Catering or something. So, if they could be authorized to check tickets in the General Compartment and collect fines from defaulters, wouldn't it be a win-win situation. It would bring down ticket-less traveling considerably and the registered salesmen could keep a part of or whole of the fines collected by them! Besides the issues with identity forgery, I don't find a loop hole in this system. And even that could be checked by taking proper measures. But what needs to be t...

To Shankey, Sneha , Ramu ,  Indranil, Bhargavi , Taksali and many more who themselves have had so many such ideas! :D

A story about how a conscientious thin boy * was compelled to bribe a TTE...and why you can do nothing about it! It was the last day at college and the thin boy, like all others, was pretty excited about it. The term had been a long and hectic one and the bag packing was supposedly the last part of it. The thin boy was looking forward to catching his train to a'bad at 6:00 am next morning. Mom awaited his arrival with her own list of food items that she was going to prepare over the week. The night went on quite nicely with goodbyes and hugs all around. After all, it would be some time before he would meet his pals again. As had been his practice, the thin boy did not consider booking a ticket before-hand. The journey was a short one and the general compartment wasn't all that crowded early in the morning...and above all that, booking a ticket on the internet required effort! Feeling tired and sleepy, the thin boy decided to have a nap leaving the last part of the packing f...

Actually the story above was supposed to be a short one, but just couldn't help it. So here goes the economics... Well, the questions I was asking there is how do u stop this kinda X-Inefficiency? TTB was pretty happy paying 100 bucks as that might be his utility for the ticket and paying lesser than that would only increase his surplus. The TTE, on his part, got a surplus of Rs. 70 himself. So, when both parties involved are making profit, why wouldn't they go for it? Well the Govt. is the one who is bearing the loss here. But then are we so self less that we would consider the losses borne by a far away Govt. to let go of our own immediate profits? Or are people living in countries with a CPI Score of  greater than 9 so self-less? Or is it that they have such robust systems that prevent corruption? Or just maybe a mix of both these. Moreover, considering that TTB was just happy to not have been fined and sent to the general compartment, cud he have possibly dared to conf...