OPINION> Commentary
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OPINION> Commentary
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Balm for passengers
(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-01-16 07:40 A sensitive government does not gloss over an issue, no matter how small, that concerns public interest. It takes note - and action. And it is in both the government's and the people's interest that action is taken promptly. A small problem could snowball into a big one if action is delayed. The concern that President Hu Jintao expressed on Wednesday for people's difficulty in buying a train ticket around Spring Festival points to the importance of every relevant department taking care of every detail in their work. As everybody knows, a train ticket can be as expensive as anything around the traditional festival when the railway nationwide has to take care of 188 million trips in 40 days. By any standards, this is a tough job for the railway to handle such a large number of passengers in a safe and orderly manner. And complaints from the general public over the difficulty in obtaining a ticket and lack of satisfactory services on their journey are understandable.
With a total length of more than 70,000 km, the railway is far from fully equipped to meet the needs of such a large number of passengers. In such circumstances, what matters is whether the railway department can make the best use of its resources and deliver well on every minor aspect from selling tickets to providing services both at stations and on trains. President Hu's instruction to the railway authorities was the best that the people could expect. He asked the department authorities to do their best and take whatever measures possible to solve the problem to the best of public satisfaction. A video footage online showed an employee in the ticket counter of Beijing Railway Station holding a lot of tickets in her hands but not selling them, while a long queue waited outside her window. No wonder it has angered many netizens. Many suspect it to be a typical case of the staff holding back tickets from passengers in order to sell them to scalpers. An investigation by the railway has proved the suspicion was groundless. But it is a reminder that railway stations must keep the public informed of the availability of tickets. And it is also important to have transparency about the measures the department has adopted to solve problems for passengers. It was good for the railway to have made it public yesterday that more than 2,000 scalpers had already been arrested in the past two weeks and more than 78,000 tickets recovered from them. It will be even better to let passengers know through what channels the scalpers had obtained so many tickets. That will not only convince the general public that the railway is doing a great job in cracking down on scalpers, but also make it possible for both watchdogs and the public to supervise the ticket selling process. Tension over railway travel around Spring Festival is not going to ease in the next few years. People may have to wait until 2012 when the country's total railway mileage will be increased to 110,000 km from the present 70,000 km. Obviously, the railway department has to take greater caution in doing its job with the present capacity. Also the mismatch between demand and supply will cause inconveniences. But people will appreciate the railway's limitations if they find the authorities sensitive and ready to help. (China Daily 01/16/2009 page8) |
