How much do you think the Central Railway makes from imposing penalties? Well, just the ticket-related fines reportedly made the coffer richer by a whopping Rs 144.23 crore between April 2021 to December 2021 ie in just 9 months.
This is highest in terms of revenue and cases both among all Zonal Railways of India. During the period 24.19 lakh ticket-less travelers were penalised by CR , which is also highest across the Indian Railway, followed by Northern Railway.
Our 24.19 lakh cases , 9.43 lakh case of ticket-less travel detected by CR's Mumbai Division. Sum of Rs 47.80 crores collected from those travelers as a fine. Similarly 6.18 cases of ticketless travelers detected by Bhusaval division, 3.70 lakh Nagpur division, 2.29 lakh cases detected by Solapur Division and 1.31 lakh cases of ticketless travelers detected by Pune Division of CRs in last 9 months. Apart from that 1.28 cases of ticketless travelers detected by special batch (head quarter team) of CR's during the period.
Apart from that 27,887 passengers were penalized for not wearing masks by CR in last 9 months, over Rs 45 lakh collected as a fine from maskless travelers.
"Continued drive against ticketless/irregular travel including unbooked luggage by Central Railway has resulted in detection of 3.33 lakh ticketless cases in the month of December 2021 and realizing a penalty of Rs.19.54 crore from them" said an official of CR.
We are conducting regular checks against ticketless travelers, which are intensified during peak rush periods said an officer of CR adding that vigorous drives such as Ambush Checks, Fortress Checks are being also conducted in association with Railway Protection Force and Magistrates under the Action Plan framed by Railway Board.
Apart from that intensive Check Posts have been created at important stations of each divisions to curb ticketless travelling in unreserved segments.
If caught travelling without a ticket, travellers typically have to shell out the original fare for the journey along with a penalty of Rs 250.
"We are making it more and more difficult to travel ticketless," said Shivaji Sutar CPRO CR, adding, "This is a huge amount of money realised from offenders caught through intense checking drives. That includes people travelling with tickets in someone else's name, children without tickets, travelling in the wrong coach, and adults travelling on half-tickets, along with ticketless travelers".
