Amid Covid-19 curbs, 27 lakh caught without ticket on trains in 2020-21: RTI

Despite severe restrictions on entry at railway stations without confirmed tickets in view of the coronavirus pandemic over 27 lakh people were caught travelling on trains ticketless in the last fiscal an RTI query has revealedThis was however less than 25 per cent of the number of cases recorded the previous financial year and that is attributable to the restrictions imposed to check the Covid19 contagion say officialsThe data made available by the Railway Board following an RTI query made by Madhya Pradeshbased activist Chandra Shekhar Gaur showed that between April 2020 and March 2021 2757 lakh people were caught travelling ticketless and Rs 14382 crore was levied as a fine from themIn the 20192020 fiscal 110 crore people were caught travelling ticketless and in total a fine of Rs 56173 crore was realized from themTraveling ticketless or with an unauthorised ticket is a longstanding challenge before the Indian Railways On its part the Railways makes informative educative and punitive measures to discourage people from doing the same said Railway spokesperson D J NarainThe 20202021 financial year was the period when the Railways ran the least number of passenger trains in its history due to the coronavirus pandemic and there were severe restrictions on the movement of people inside railway premises including nonissuance of platform ticketsIt includes the lockdown period between April 14 and May 3 when the Railways was not operating any passenger trains except the Shramik Specials which started from May 1 These trains were run at the request of the state governments and the tickets were issued only to those authorised by the statesIn June last year the Railways began running special trains and issued strict guidelines eticketing through IRCTC website or through mobile App no tickets booking at reservation counter only passengers with confirmed tickets to be allowed entry at station and screening to be done before boarding with only asymptomatic passengers allowed to enter the trainFully waitlisted passengers and unreserved passengers were not allowed to travel on trains as the unreserved coaches were booked as reserved second sitting coaches to ensure that the necessary Covid19 related protocols are followedAccordingly in line with these instructions without ticket passengers at railway premises and trains were being identified and charged as part of normal as well as special ticket checking drivesldquoThe number of without ticket cases in 202021 2757 lakh was less than 25 per cent of the number of such cases detected in 201920 when such figure was 110 crore This was feasible due to wide publicity efforts by railways to create awareness and to discourage irregular travel Narain saidCurrently the Railways is running 809 special Mail Express trains on an average per day 2891 suburban services 26 special trains being operated as clones of highly patronised trains and 403 passenger servicesThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever