Mumbai: All women ticket checking squad retrieve fine of Rs 13 lakh

A lady ticket checker checks tickets of a passenger at a railway station in Mumbai

Central Railway Mumbai Division's all-women Tejaswini squads have excelled in performance this year even in the difficult times of the COVID-19 pandemic. From September to November 2020, the Tejaswini squads alone detected 5,119 cases of ticketless/irregular travel and recovered an amount of Rs. 13,18,991/- as fine.

The Mumbai division of Central Railway formed an all Ladies ticket checking squad "Tejaswini" on August 17, 2001, to detect ticketless travellers and other irregular travellers in the Suburban Section especially in ladies' compartments. Ladies TC staff from various stations were enlisted and deployed in this exclusive Tejaswini squad.

The Tejaswini squads alone detected 5,119 cases and recovered an amount of Rs. 13,18,991/- as fine

The formation of "Tejaswini" batches boosted all Lady TTEs with extra enthusiasm. The initiative and keenness in the work led to steep growth in the excess fare earnings over the years and during the financial year 2019-2020, the performance of Tejaswini squads showed improvement of 24.69 per cent in respect of fines (Rs 3.43 crore as against 2.75 crore in last financial year) realised and 5.97 per cent in respect of detected cases (1.24 lakh as against 1.17 lakh in last financial year), as compared to last year.

In the late nineties, it was a very rare sight to see ladies staff performing duty in the field of ticket checking. After taking steps towards women empowerment by the Indian Railways, this scenario has changed and woman TCs were recruited in the ticket checking category and they were deployed at different stations of Mumbai division.

Performing ticket checking duties, in suburban trains is a challenging job even for male ticket-checkers but this move of Administration led to impressive results as the Tejaswini Squads showed an excellent performance in detection of ticketless travellers by realizing fine/penalty from them. Further, the menace of Hawkers/Beggars, Eunuchs, etc. also were curtailed to a great extent in Ladies compartments of the suburban trains.

Many women ticket checking staff with a sports background are part of Tejaswini Special Squads and exhibiting excellence in the discharge of both, professional duties as well as in sports. The work of Tejaswini Squads was recognized on various occasions. During the current pandemic, Lady TCs also came forward and became a part of the collective fight against novel coronavirus.

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