The Western Railway on Saturday said that in the past six months it has collected Rs 1.04 crore as fines from commuters travelling unauthorised during the pandemic in suburban trains.

Western Railway's Mumbai division has conducted various drives to check and deter unauthorised passengers in trains. More than 25,900 cases were detected in suburban as well as non-suburban sections by conducting such stringent checking drives and Rs 1.04 crores were collected as fine.

Sumit Thakur, Western Railway's Chief Public Relations Officer, in a statement said that to ensure that no unauthorized passengers can travel in trains, Mumbai Division of Western Railway conducted regular, fortress, intensive, and officer special ticket checking drives.

He added that these special checks were conducted by a team of senior officers and ticket checking staff from May 2020 to November 26, 2020. A total of 25,982 cases were detected and an amount of Rs 1.04 crore was collected as a penalty. Out of these 25,982 cases, 19,172 cases were detected in the suburban section wherein fines to the tune of Rs 55 lakhs were recovered and 6810 cases were detected in the non-suburban section recovering fine of Rs 49 lakhs.

The total 25,982 cases include 24,710 cases in regular ticket checking drives and 1,272 cases were detected in the intensive, fortress, and special ticket checking drives.

Western Railway currently runs 1201 Special Suburban services for essential services staff as well as other categories of public including women passengers during stipulated timings of non-peak hours, as notified by the Maharashtra government.