Is it time to start auctioning cinema tickets, railway tickets, match tickets and other such things when demand exceeds supply and consequently there is black marketing. The events unfolded after 2G spectrum allotment may indicate that..
Lets first understand, why there is black marketing. Blackmarketing is because market value is more than fixed price and demand exceeds supply. This is exactly what happens in case blockbuster movies. Same is scenario in case of alleged misuse of tatkal tickets by some. same thing we observed in case of match tickets of final and semifinal in last cricket world cup.
So should we abandon first come first serve policy in such cases and necessarily resort to auction? Particularly so if the proceeds of sale are going in government coffers? Logic would be that auction tatkal railway ticket will bring more money to govt coffers.. I am not offering any solution but just giveing food for thought.. What should be strategy in such cases?
Lets first understand, why there is black marketing. Blackmarketing is because market value is more than fixed price and demand exceeds supply. This is exactly what happens in case blockbuster movies. Same is scenario in case of alleged misuse of tatkal tickets by some. same thing we observed in case of match tickets of final and semifinal in last cricket world cup.
So should we abandon first come first serve policy in such cases and necessarily resort to auction? Particularly so if the proceeds of sale are going in government coffers? Logic would be that auction tatkal railway ticket will bring more money to govt coffers.. I am not offering any solution but just giveing food for thought.. What should be strategy in such cases?
2 comments:
auction over first come first serve is simply a profit scenario - it does not help with blackmarketeering.
The key thing here is transparency. If you have a system in place where it's clear and documented to everyone on who made the first approach, then first come first served is a valid approach even on a fixed price commodity
If you have a good identification mechanism in place, non transferable assets should not be allowed to be used by non-purchaser by a simple ID check
not everything can be auctioned at prices that market will bear when demand exceedingly outruns the supply. In that situation, only the richest will get to see the blockbusters or travel by rail. It could have been done for spectrum though
I am not a big follower of blogs, but this idea just struck me and I googled for it. I fully agree for such a thing, if possible, though I know there are big milestones to get something like that implemented. Firstly, I guess it's pretty straightforward to write a computer program to do the irctc ticket purchases during tatkal time (I recently read about a caught case doing the same). So first come first serve shouldn't make sense, or, there should be attempts to avoid such an attempt. Auctions seem perfect, if someone who is not ready (or is not able to) spend more, he should either look for other means or just plan in advance...there are always other means to travel, and frankly, the real rich wouldn't want to waste their time over tatkal bookings, and can manage flight tickets easily.
-Arpit
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