The Mumbai division of Central Railways has collected over Rs 100 crores as fines from passengers travelling without tickets. The collections were made from 18 lakh ticketless passengers travelling on trains between April 2022 and February 2023. The staggering fine collection also makes Mumbai the first Indian Railways division to achieve this feat. The numbers are up by over 66 percent from the collections made by the division last year. As per the official data of the central railway, the division collected Rs 60 crores last year.
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The Mumbai division of central railways has 77 railway stations, and 1,200 Travel Ticket Examiners (TTs). They are the ones tasked with the job of looking out for ticketless travellers on trains.
Despite repeated appeals by the authorities to not travel without tickets, the fine collection has shot up in the past year. The target according to railway officials is never to increase fines but to make the journey of travellers convenient. Due to the presence of ticketless passengers, those who buy tickets also face several troubles during their journey.
As per the statement of Central railways, the Rs 100 crore includes a fine of Rs 87.43 lakh recovered from 25,781 passengers who were found travelling without tickets in air-conditioned local trains, and Rs 5.05 crore from 1.45 lakh passengers travelling without tickets in first-class coaches.
According to a TTE Preeti Singh, who spoke to NDTV, it is the body language of the passenger that tells us something is fishy. Further, the experience also helps TTEs in spotting ticketless travellers. In 2019 -2020, the Mumbai division collected Rs 76.82 crore from 15.73 lakh passengers.
Over the years Indian Railways has collected large sums as fines from ticketless travellers. If a person is caught travelling without a ticket, he/she will face a penalty of a minimum of Rs 250 along with the cost of the distance travelled. In case a traveller is unable to pay the required fine, They may be handed over to Railway Protection Force.
In 2021, Central Railways collected over Rs 100 crore as fines from passengers between April and November period of the year. Apart from passengers travelling without tickets, this figure also included penalties for not wearing masks, part of the COVID-19 protocol at railway stations.
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