E-ticketing facility for Taj Mahal to open soon

Tourists visiting the Taj Mahal so far had to wait in interminable queues, sometimes under a blazing summer sun, to see the monument, The Times of India reported. That would however, soon change with the online facility set to become functional from 25 December.

The e-ticketing facility can not only be expected to end long queues at the Taj Mahal ticket counters, but also curb the practice of unscrupulous elements trying to re-sell entry tickets. A few people had been caught by tourist police, including an ASI staffer, a couple of years back.

Furthermore, with the ensuing online facility in place, ASI would also look at restricting the number of visitors in a single day. As with train tickets, visitors would be put on the waiting list in the event the fixed limit was crossed. Those on the waiting list would get tickets for the next available day.

The service provider for the facility would be Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).

According to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) officials, the first month would be a trial phase, in which they would monitor tourists' response and overcome technical shortcomings, following which visitors could either book their tickets online or buy tickets at the existing counters outside the monument.
 
The Hindustan Times reported citing ASI director general Rakesh Tiwari  the online ticketing service to be trialed from 25 December, may thereafter be regularised soon.

The domed monument sees around 30 lakh tourists every year. The monument was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal.

The white marble monument described by Rabindranath Tagore as a ''teardrop on the cheek of time'' houses the graves of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal and a number of Mughal royalty, and a mosque within the complex.

During a visit to the Taj Mahal in March last year, former union minister of culture Chandresh Kumari Katoch too had stressed on ending the long queues by introducing online tickets.

Tiwari, who had visited the monument on Thursday, met ASI and IRCTC officials to discuss the issue.

According to Tiwari, after starting online ticket bookings, officials would able to make an estimate of the exact number of tourists visiting the monument on a day and decide how many tickets would be sold each day.

By way of a precautionary measure to stop re-selling of the tickets, the ASI has also decided to introduce ''bar-coding'' of the passes, which would be checked by a computerised scanner.

He added that automated gates would not open if any one tried to gain entry with a ticket used earlier.