WR collects Rs 6.56 cr fine from ticketless travellers

Mumbai, Feb 19: The Western Railway (WR) has collected Rs 6.56 crore in the form of penalty from ticketless travellers in the past one month. "By conducting regular checks, the WR, in January 2016, detected more than 1.83 lakh cases of ticketless travellers and collected a fine of Rs 6.56 crore," a statement issued by the WR said.

During this time, 83 cases of illegal transfer of reserved tickets were detected, while 1,074 beggars and unauthorised hawkers were either apprehended, evicted or fined, said the statement. Besides, 188 checks were conducted against touts and other anti-social elements and 257 persons were apprehended, prosecuted and fined under various sections of the Indian Railways Act, it said.

"As per the provisions of the Act, 109 people were sent to jail for some of these offences, including ticketless travel," the release added.

In addition, 264 school children above 12 years of age were found travelling in ladies' compartment of suburban trains and were removed from those coaches by Surakshini squad, a special women squad of RPF personnel, which patrol WR local trains.

Stating the objective of conducting such raids, a senior officer of Western Railway said, "With an aim to provide better services to our bona fide rail users, the WR has regularly been taking necessary steps and senior Officers are closely monitoring the revenue loss due to ticketless travel and such other irregularities." The WR is divided into six operating divisions-- Mumbai, Vadodara, Ahmedabad, Rajkot, Bhavnagar and Ratlam.

PTI