Central Railway fines record 4,438 passengers for ticketless travel at Kalyan railway station

Representational Pic/File

As many as 4,438 passengers were fined in a single day at Kalyan railway station in the Mumbai division of Central Railway during a drive against ticketless and unauthorised travel, an official release said on Tuesday, according to the PTI.

A total of 167 ticket-checking staff, two senior officers, and 35 RPF personnel participated in the fortress check operation conducted on Monday and collected a fine of Rs 16.85 lakh.

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During a fortress check, all entry and exit points are manned by ticket-checking staff to identify 'without-ticket' train travellers.

"The ticket checking drive resulted in penalizing 4,438 cases of ticketless/unauthorized travel, generating revenue of Rs 16.85 lakh in a single day," the release said.

Arun Kumar, senior divisional commercial manager, and Douglas Menezes, assistant commercial Manager (ticket checking), participated in the drive, as per the PTI.

To ensure comfortable travel and better services to all bonafide rail users, the Mumbai division conducts intensive ticket checking in suburban, mail, express, passenger services and special trains to curb ticketless and unauthorised travel, as per the release.

Meanwhile, the Western Railway recently said that it collected Rs 81.18 crore as fine during ticket checking drives between April to September this year.

In an official statement, the Western Railway said that in order to ensure hassle-free, comfortable travel and better services to all bonafide passengers over Western Railway, intensive ticket checking drives are being carried out continuously over Mumbai suburban local services, Mail/Express as well as passenger trains and holiday special trains so as to curb the menace of ticketless/irregular passengers.

It said, the highly motivated ticket checking team under the supervision of senior commercial officers of Western Railway organised several ticket checking drives during the months from April to September 2023, thereby recovering an amount to the tune of Rs. 81.18 Crore, which also includes Rs. 20.74 Cr from Mumbai Suburban section.

According to a press release issued by Sumit Thakur - Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, during the month of September 2023, an amount of Rs.9.50 crore was recovered through detection of 1.64 lakh ticketless/irregular passengers, including unbooked luggage cases.

In the month of September, the Western Railway realized fines amounting to Rs.2.34 crore through detection of over 53,000 cases over Mumbai Suburban section. To prevent unauthorized entry in AC local trains, frequent surprise ticket checking drives are carried out. As a result of these drives more than 38000 unauthorized passengers have been penalized during the period April to September 2023 and Rs. 126.13 lakhs collected in fines, which is about 140% higher than the same period of last year.

(with PTI inputs)