14 August,2021 07:42 AM IST | Mumbai | Rajendra B. Aklekar
A commuter’s ticket being checked at Dadar. Pic/Sayyed Sameer Abedi
The railways collected over Rs 17 crore from about 3.5 lakh ticketless travellers on local trains in the past four months, a sign of people's desperation to use the city's lifeline. Mumbai's suburban network opens for the fully vaccinated individuals on August 15.
Local train access for the general public was given in February 2021 but was stopped on April 22, just before the second wave hit the city. Since then the trains have been restricted to essential workers and government staff.
But the curbs did not deter thousands of commuters from boarding the trains despite being ineligible. Those caught faced penalties and cases for violation of the Disaster Management Act.
Apart from collecting fines from ticketless travellers, railway officials said, the Maharashtra government has permitted the railways to also penalise people for pandemic violations. Accordingly, Rs 500 fine is imposed for flouting Disaster Management Authority guidelines and Covid-appropriate behaviour.
On Central Railway, between April and July 2021, there were close to 3 lakh cases of ticketless travellers and a fine of Rs 15.92 crore was recovered. On Western Railway, between April 22 and August 9, officials caught 44,073 violators and recovered Rs 1.28 crore from them, taking the total fines from Mumbai's local train network to Rs 17.2 crore.
"The condition was such that we had to restrict crowds. There is a certain equation of patients, available beds and oxygen supply. If this mathematics goes wrong, the pandemic will be out of control. The restrictions were to maintain a fine balance," a senior official said.
The state has also empowered the railway ticket checking staff to fine passengers without masks. Between April 17 and July end, 6,769 maskless WR commuters collectively paid a fine Rs 13.54 lakh. On CR, 1,269 such violators coughed up fines of Rs 2.4 lakh between April 17 and early June.
