Railways acts tough to check ticketless travel

Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, March 17

The Firozepur Division of the Northern Railway has launched a special drive against ticketless travel, especially in the wake of the ongoing festival season and spurt in the passenger traffic.

In the surprise ticket checking campaign on Ludhiana-Jalandhar, Ludhiana-Firozepur and Firozepur-Jalandhar rail sections during the past two days, as many as 3,100 passengers were caught travelling without tickets and penalty, including rail fare of Rs 20 lakh, was recovered from them.

The special ticket checking campaign was organised under the overall supervision of Senior Divisional Commercial Manager/Freight Vimal Kalra while the checking on trains and railway platforms was conducted by Commercial Inspector Malkit Singh, JP Meena and four other ticket examiners.

Kalra said along with effective measures against the menace of ticketless travelling, the railways were also paying serious attention to cleanliness and amenities for rail travellers both on trains and railway platforms. The railways were carrying out a special anti-littering operation across the Firozepur Division and heavy fine/penalty was being imposed on those littering at railway stations.

He said while ticket checking was a regular feature on most trunk routes, branch routes were also now under the focus and special ticket checking staff had been deployed to carry out checking of tickets on most branch routes as well.

“It will be in their own interest that all rail travellers carry valid journey tickets so that they themselves as well as other co-passengers did not face any inconvenience while travelling,” Kalra said.

Kalra, along with other officials, also inspected the parcel office and the railway reservation office to assess the working conditions in the parcel management system. He emphasised that the efficient parcel management system was a precondition to promote railway freight booking and enhance the revenue.