Railway Ticket Vending Machine - A Frustrating Experience

I'm a college-goer from West Bengal. Demonetization didn't affect me one bit as I was used to online transactions, PayTM way before they were cool. Let me share a frustrating incident today.

Today, when I left for college from home, I noticed that my monthly ticket had expired and my R-wallet (UTS app from Indian Railways) balance was also zero. So I went to the ticket counter at Uttarpara station (District - Hooghly) to purchase a 10 rupees ticket. I couldn't buy a return ticket as I had no extra small denominations.

My college is at Chinsurah. While coming back from college, I quickly boarded a train only to realize that I had no return ticket. So I got down at the next station, Chandannagar. I went to the automatic ticket vending machine to buy my ticket. I completed all the procedure but my ticket didn't come out even after inserting the money.

Image Only For Representative Purpose (Not from original place)

So I went to the man sitting behind the ticket counter. He said that it had happened with him also and there's no way I could get my money back. All they could do was to complain to those who operate these machines.

So I had to buy another ticket from the counter. I didn't mind those 10 rupees. But to some people, even a single rupee matters. And this incident can happen to anybody.

I don't know whether Railways operates these machines or not. But when our PM is talking about using technology and POS machines are being installed at metro stations then why this type of incident occurs even now? I know PM isn't to be blamed in this case, I just took his name for giving an example. Railways should look into this matter.