Mumbai finds 6 desperate ways to get onto locals

CR is likely to announce additional services for the essential category this week. File pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi

The Railways have found six major categories of irregularities and frauds that desperate commuters are resorting to in order to get on one these days.

"A team of senior officers and ticket checking staff of Central Railway (CR) conducted an intensive drive from August 1 to September 17 and detected 4,911 cases. The major irregularities included travelling on altered tickets, travelling with fake ID cards, travelling with colour photocopies of the ticket, transferred tickets in someone else's name, misuse of senior citizen quota and improper conversion of system generated ticket to e-tickets," a senior official said.

"Due to several such cases, a total of Rs 22.37 lakh was collected from penalties. These 4,911 cases were not just on local trains, but on outstation trains, too," the official added.

The essential service special local trains are now being allowed for a limited number of categories and people in these categories need to procure QR-based e-passes which are linked to their official identity cards.

The railways started select special local train services on the request of the Maharashtra government from June 15 for essential staff. On July 1, a few more categories of essential services were added to ensure social distancing in trains and at stations.

Officials said the railways have been taking every possible step to ensure social distancing by way of QR code contactless checking, queue management with the help of station staff and GRP, floor markings, etc.

While Western Railway (WR) has already raised its suburban services for the essential category to 500, CR currently runs 355 services and may announce additional services for the essential category this week, subject to approvals from the Maharashtra government.

However, citizens have blamed the state government for imbalance in the situation as in the recent Unlock 4 process it allowed more percentage of private offices to be opened, but not enough public transport has been arranged which is leading to daily commuting issues.

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