In order to ensure hassle-free, comfortable travel & better services to all bonafide passengers over Western Railway, intensive ticket checking drives are being carried out continuously over Mumbai suburban local services, Mail/Express as well as passenger trains & holiday special trains so as to curb the menace of ticketless/irregular passengers.
The highly motivated ticket checking team under the supervision of senior commercial officers of Western Railway organised several ticket checking drives during the period from April to December 2022, thereby recovering an amount to the tune of ₹135.58 crore.
According to Sumit Thakur – Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, during the month of December 2022, an amount of ₹9.87 crore was recovered through detection of 1.58 lakh ticketless/irregular passengers, including unbooked luggage cases. It is pertinent to mention that during the period from April to December 2022, total 20.12 lakh ticketless/ irregular passengers & unbooked luggage cases were detected, as against 11.76 lakh cases detected during the corresponding period last year, which is an increase of over 71.10%.
Fine of ₹135.58 crore was recovered from these passengers which is an increase of 99.15% over corresponding period of last year, which was ₹68.08 crore. To prevent unauthorized entry in AC local trains, frequent surprise ticket checking drives are carried out.
Over 31,000 passengers fined
As a result of these drives, more than 31,500 unauthorised passengers have been penalized since April 2022.
Thakur added that the job of a ticket checker not only requires skill, tactfulness to detect deceitful passengers traveling without a ticket among genuine travellers but also requires good knowledge of rules and convincing skills to collect penalty amounts from deceitful passengers. Western Railway is proud to have such skilful & devoted ticket checking staff.
Through his zeal & dedication to his duties, Shri Zahid K Qureshi, Dy. Chief Ticket Inspector, Mumbai has collected the highest ever ticket checking fines amounting to over ₹1 Cr. from 11,684 persons traveling without tickets and 1,432 irregular travellers in the year 2022.
WR appreciates the hard work he has put in his 26 years of service and his commendable devotion to work. It is noteworthy that Shri Qureshi collected fines to the tune of ₹21.41 lakh in the month of October 2022, which is a record for the highest monthly fines.
