Central Railway collects Rs 120 crore in fines from ticketless commuters

The ticket-checkers of Central Railway during this fiscal (between April 2015 and March 2016) collected a whopping Rs 120.57 crore as fines from 24.31 lakh cases of ticketless and irregular train travellers. This is a sizable increase of 19.19% over the Rs.101.16 crore fines collected during the fiscal 2014-15.

In March 2016 alone, a total of 1.87 lakh cases of ticketless/irregular travel including unbooked luggage cases were detected and Rs.9.11 crore was recovered.

According to officials, it just goes to show that despite newer avenues for buying tickets, like mobile-ticketing, Automated Ticket Vending Machines and Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking​ Seva, the penchant for travelling ticket-less is still high among commuters.

“It could also be that nowadays more fortress checks are conducted at railway stations and this is netting more ticketless commuters than before,” said a senior official.