Mumbai: Western Railway collected Rs 68.45-crore fines from ticketless commuters between April-September

Last month, WR collected fines amounting to Rs 2.69 crore from 80,000 ticketless commuters on the Mumbai suburban section in regular ticket-checking drives. Pic/Western Railway

The Western Railway (WR) collected fines worth Rs 68.45 crore during an intensive ticket-checking drive from April to September. During this period, 1.38 lakh passengers, travelling without tickets on Mumbai suburban local services, Mail/Express trains as well as passenger and holiday specials were penalised, WR stated in a press release issued on Wednesday, October 9.

Of the total amount, Rs 22.7 crore alone was recovered from the Mumbai suburban section, the press release issued by Vineet Abhishek, the Chief Public Relations Officer of WR, said.

Last month, WR collected fines amounting to Rs 2.69 crore from 80,000 ticketless commuters on the Mumbai suburban section. "To prevent unauthorised entry in air-conditioned (AC) local trains, frequent surprise ticket checking drives are carried out. As a result of these drives, almost 28,500 unauthorised passengers have been penalised from April to September and over Rs 94 lakh collected in fines," the release further stated.

Till August, WR had collected Rs 62 crore as fines in Mumbai

The Western Railway in September said that it had collected more than Rs 62 crore as fines during the ticket-checking drives from April to August.

The officials said that Rs 20 crore was collected as fines from the Mumbai suburban section alone.

In an official statement, the Western Railway said that in order to ensure hassle-free, comfortable travel & better services to all bonafide passengers over Western Railway, intensive ticket checking drives are being carried out continuously over Mumbai suburban local services, Mail/Express as well as passenger trains and holiday special trains so as to curb the menace of ticketless/irregular passengers.

"The highly motivated ticket checking team under the supervision of senior commercial officers of Western Railway organised several ticket checking drives during the months of April to August 2024, thereby recovering an amount of Rs. 62.31 crore, which also includes over Rs. 20 crore from Mumbai Suburban section," the statement said.

According to a press release issued by Public Relations Department of Western Railway, during the month of August 2024, an amount of Rs. 4.96 crore was recovered through detection of 1.19 lakh ticketless/irregular passengers, including unbooked luggage cases.

The Western Railway statement said that in the month of August, the Western Railway realised fines amounting to Rs. 2.62 crore through detection of 82 thousand cases over Mumbai suburban section.