To curb the menace of ticketless/irregular passengers and to ensure hassle-free and comfortable travel to all bona fide passengers, the Western Railway (WR) is carrying out intensive ticket-checking drives frequently on Mumbai suburban, Mail/Express as well as passenger and holiday special trains.
The ticket-checking teams, under the supervision of senior commercial officers of WR, organised several drives during the period from April to October and recovered fines worth Rs 121.67 crore. This amount is 51 per cent higher than the collection made during the corresponding period last year as well as more than 14 per cent more over the target set by Railway Board.
According to a press release issued by WR Chief Public Relations Officer Vineet Abhishek, in October itself, an amount of Rs 24.20 crore was recovered in 3.39 lakh cases from passengers for travelling without tickets and unbooked luggage. This is a 100 per cent increase over the previous year’s October figure, WR stated.
To prevent unauthorised entry on air-conditioned (AC) local trains, frequent surprise ticket-checking drives are being carried out. As a result, around 62,000 unauthorised passengers were fined Rs 2.02 crore between April and October. This amount is almost 76 per cent higher than the collection made during the corresponding period last year.
WR has appealed to passengers to travel with valid tickets.
