Western Railway collects Rs 170 cr fine in 12 months including Rs 43 cr from Mumbai Suburban section

File Photo/PTI

The Western Railway has collected a record amount in fine during intense ticket checking drives from April 2022 to March 2023, including approximately Rs 43.7 crore from Mumbai suburban section.

A statement of the Western Railway said that in order to ensure hassle-free services to all passengers, intensive ticket checking drives were 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. The ticket checking team under the supervision of senior commercial officers of Western Railway organized several ticket checking drives during the period from April 2022 to March 2023, thereby recovering an amount to the tune of Rs. 170.35 crore, which also includes Rs. 43.07 crore from Mumbai Suburban section.

According to the statement, during the month of March 2023, an amount of Rs 12.7 crore was recovered through detection of 1.94 lakh ticketless, irregular passengers, including unbooked luggage cases.

Pertinently, during the period from April 2022 to March 2023, total 25.63 lakh ticketless, irregular passengers and unbooked luggage cases were detected, as against 18.88 lakh cases detected during the corresponding period last year, which is an increase of 35.75 per cent.

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Fine of Rs. 170.35 crore was recovered from these passengers which is an increase of 50 per cent over corresponding period of last year, which was Rs 113.57 crore. In the month of March 2023, WR realized fines amounting to Rs 3.8 crore from 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 48691 unauthorized passengers have been penalized since April 2022."