AURANGABAD: South Central Railway (SCR) on Thursday carried out a series of surprise checks on trains passing through Aurangabad railway station, taking action against several ticketless travellers.
Even unauthorized vendors bore the brunt of the drive, railway authorities said.
The crackdown, which began in the morning, helped the authorities to recovery a significant amount of money in penalties. However, details of the number of errant passengers that were penalized and the amount recovered as fines were not compiled by the SCR authorities till late on Thursday evening.
The authorities focused their energies on trains originating in and passing through Aurangabad, among other station. Notably, on-board inspections were carried out by halting trains a fair distance from the stations, catching ticketless passengers on the wrong foot.
Authorities said they did this to ensure errant travellers did not jump out of the train and escape, which would have been the case had this been done at the station.
SCR officials said this was only the beginning, and that they would carry out similar drives in the future too, to curb ticketless travel and other unauthorized practices on trains. The focus, authorities said, was on ensuring the rights of bona fide passengers were protected.
Appealing to passengers to travel in a legitimate manner, SCR authorities said cooperation from travellers would help the Indian railway authorities in improving their services across the country.
In 2016-17, the Nanded division of the South Central Railway had caught over 1.52 lakh ticketless travellers, which was 19,000 higher than the previous year. Subsequent penalties generated Rs5.59 crore in revenue for SCR.
Even unauthorized vendors bore the brunt of the drive, railway authorities said.
The crackdown, which began in the morning, helped the authorities to recovery a significant amount of money in penalties. However, details of the number of errant passengers that were penalized and the amount recovered as fines were not compiled by the SCR authorities till late on Thursday evening.
The authorities focused their energies on trains originating in and passing through Aurangabad, among other station. Notably, on-board inspections were carried out by halting trains a fair distance from the stations, catching ticketless passengers on the wrong foot.
Authorities said they did this to ensure errant travellers did not jump out of the train and escape, which would have been the case had this been done at the station.
SCR officials said this was only the beginning, and that they would carry out similar drives in the future too, to curb ticketless travel and other unauthorized practices on trains. The focus, authorities said, was on ensuring the rights of bona fide passengers were protected.
Appealing to passengers to travel in a legitimate manner, SCR authorities said cooperation from travellers would help the Indian railway authorities in improving their services across the country.
In 2016-17, the Nanded division of the South Central Railway had caught over 1.52 lakh ticketless travellers, which was 19,000 higher than the previous year. Subsequent penalties generated Rs5.59 crore in revenue for SCR.
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