Ranchi, March 30: The postal department today inaugurated a railway ticket booking counter at the General Post Office (GPO) in Ranchi.

Soon after the inauguration, around 17 passengers bought tickets from the counter.

A.K. Dutta, the divisional railway manager of Ranchi railway division, chief postmaster-general, Jharkhand circle, Rajiv Ranjan Prasad and several other officials of the two departments were present at today’s ceremony .

Three more counters will come up at any three of the post offices at Kanke, Hehal, Hazaribagh, Koderma or Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Ranchi, next month.

The department has already opened ticket counters at select post offices in Deoghar, Mango (Jamshedpur), Rajrappa, Simdega, Gumla, Khunti and BIT, Mesra and has plans to start more 56 counters across the state.

“The idea is to provide the passengers, especially those residing in remote areas, the facility to book railway tickets from the nearest post office,” said Anil Kumar, director, postal services, Jharkhand circle.

“We want to convert the post offices into service super markets by adding more advanced facilities,” said Kumar.

The postal department also announced to start a service of delivering tickets to the passengers at their homes.

“We have plans to deliver railway tickets at the doorsteps of passengers. This service will become operational by the end of next month,” said Kuma.

The postal department has already launched services for collection of electricity and telephone bills at its counters in GPO, Ranchi, and from the houses of consumers.

Now, these two services will be clubbed with the third one — delivery of railway tickets at doorstep.