Western Railway collects Rs 141 crore as fines, 38 per cent collection rise in Mumbai AC local trains

Western Railway conducted extensive ticket checking drives between April 2023 and Jan 2024. Pic/WR

Western Railway on Wednesday said that it collected Rs 141 crore as fines during different ticket checking drives conducted between April 2023 and January 2024 and a 38 per cent fine collection rise has been witnessed in Mumbai AC local trains.

According to the Western Railway, in order to ensure hassle-free, comfortable travel and 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.

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The Western Railway said, the highly motivated ticket checking team under the supervision of senior commercial officers of Western Railway organised several ticket checking drives during the period from April 2023 to January, 2024, thereby recovering an amount to the tune of Rs. 141.50 crore, which also includes Rs. 37.55 Crore from Mumbai suburban section.

According to a press release issued by Sumit Thakur - Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, during the month of January, 2024, an amount of Rs.13.07 crore was recovered through detection of 2.28 lakh ticketless/irregular passengers, including unbooked luggage cases. Also in the month of January, Western Railway realised fines amounting to almost Rs. 4 crore through detection of about 94 thousand cases over Mumbai suburban section. To prevent unauthorised entry in Mumbai AC local trains, frequent surprise ticket checking drives were carried out. As a result of these drives more than 51,000 unauthorised passengers have been penalised during the period April, 2023 to January, 2024 and Rs. 170.74 lakh collected in fines, which is about 38 per cent higher than the same period of last year.

"Western Railway appeals to the general public to travel with proper and valid tickets," he said.

Meanwhile, in an another statement, the Western Railway said, Mahesh Chandra, an Indian Railways Stores Service (IRSS) officer from the 1986 batch, has taken over the charge as Principal Chief Materials Manager of Western Railway. Prior to this, he was on deputation to Ministry of Defence and was working as Chief Vigilance Officer of Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited and also holding additional charges of CVO, Hindustan Shipyard Limited, Vishakhapatnam and CVO, Munitions India limited, Pune, all defence PSUs.