Indian Railways Nab 300+ Tatkal Scamsters Via Operation Thunder; Officials Ordered To Travel In General Class!

The Indian Railways announced the Tatkal scheme way back in 2012, keeping in mind the customers’ ease in booking tickets. But ever since its launch, the Tatkal platform has often been misused by touts.

Touts and even agents have adopted a mean method of coveting tickets beforehand and then selling them off to passengers at raised prices. The Indian Railways has many a time attempted to put a stop to such exploitation, the latest being Operation Thunder, which has helped catch as much as 380 such scamsters!

On the other hand, the minister of Indian Railways has taken to a unique and interesting method to get feedback from the passengers of the railways to bring about the necessary improvements in the railways.

Operation Thunder Launched by The Indian Railways

The Indian Railways, along with the Railway Protection Force (RPF), has recently launched the Operation Thunder with an intention to put a halt to touts misusing the system.

With the help of this platform, the Indian Railways has been able to put as much as 380 scammers under arrest. Live tickets worth 22-23 lakh have been seized from these culprits.

RPF DG Arun Kumar said, “Due to summer rush across the country, ticket agents have become very active. The RPF has collected information and launched operation against these touts raiding 141 cities and arrested over 380 culprits involved in the racket.”

There are specifications that inside officials might be involved in this scam too. The minister has given his go-ahead to make them face the law in case any of them is found with their hands dirty.

Kumar also revealed that the platform for online booking is quite easy enough to hack. The software system is being audited at regular intervals but the possibility that scamsters can hack the system cannot be denied.

Railway Officials To Collect Feedback By Travelling in General Class

Suresh Angadi, the Minister of State for Railways has come up with an innovative technique and asked the officials of Indian Railways to travel in all classes of the railways and to collect feedback from passengers about various aspects of the trains.

Angadi asked the railway officials to make sure that the railways have reached to the ‘poorest of people’. He has also directed the officials to get passengers’ feedback about safety, cleanliness, hygiene, comfort and other such factors.

The minister talked about this during a meeting conducted for reviewing purposes headed by Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, and attended by General Managers (GMs) of Zonal Railways/Production Units, Divisional Railway Managers (DRMs) through video-conference.