Railways Earned Rs 9000 Cr From Waitlisted Tickets; This TT Collected Rs 1.5 Cr From Ticketless Passengers!

As per the reports, the Central Railway collected Rs 155.14 crore in fines from April to December 2019 under a special drive against ticket-less travel.

In another development, Indian Railways has earned crores from passengers who forget to cancel their waitlisted tickets. 

How Did This Happen?

According to data released by the Central Railway, four of their ticket checkers have collected more than a crore each,.

Out of them, the ticket Collector SB Galande made a record breaking collection of Rs 1.51 crore by catching 22,680 ticketless passengers in 2019. 

Alos, his record was followed by his colleague Ravi Kumar, who collected Rs 1.45 crore from 20,657 passengers. 

Further, two more TCs crossed the one crore mark were MM Shinde collected Rs 1.07 crore from 16,035 passengers and D Kumar collected Rs 1.02 crore from 15,264 passengers.

Ravi Kumar, the TC who came second said ‘dealing’ takes place in each case as “Nobody pays the fine after they are caught. First they request to not be fined and then negotiate. In passenger trains more people are caught without tickets compared to local trains. As of now I never felt threatened while doing my duty,” he said.

Why A Special Drive?

Basically, this special drive’s aim was to provide better facilities to passengers, According to the Central Railway.

The CPRO Central Railway, Shivaji Sutar said “We urge the passengers to travel with a valid ticket. Our driver will continue against ticket-less travellers. We have seen a rise in revenue for railways in the recent drive,”.

What About Cancelled Tickets?

According to sources, Indian Railways has earned over Rs 9,000 crore from ticket cancellation charges and non-cancellation of waitlisted tickets in the last three years.

According to the response to an RTI application filed by activist Sujeet Swami, over Rs 9,000 crore earnings were recorded between 2017 to 2020.

The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), in its response to the RTI application, said that the national carrier had earned a whopping Rs 4,335 crore in the period between January 1, 2017 to January 31, 2020 from over 9.5 crore passengers who had not canceled their waitlisted tickets. 

Also, the national transporter also earned Rs 4,684 crore from the passengers who canceled their confirmed train tickets. 

Why Would This Happen?

Basically as part of the standard practice, Indian Railways charges passengers cancellation fee for confirmed tickets, implying that the full amount of the ticket is not refunded. 

Further sources revealed that the major source of earnings for both segments was from passengers who had booked sleeper class and Third AC tickets.

They further confirmed that there is a definitive surge in the booking of IRCTC train tickets via online mode. 

Moreover from January 1, 2017 to January 31, 2020, a total of 145 crore passengers had booked their tickets online whereas 74 crore people had taken the older method of booking through Indian Railways reservation counters.

How Does It Affect?

A Kota-based activist Swami filed a plea in the Rajasthan High Court, in which he laid the blame on Indian Railways and called its reservation policy ‘discriminatory.’

Swami  said that the ‘gaps’ in the reservation and refund policies for online and counter reservation put passengers under the ‘unnecessary’ burden. 

According to Swami this was leading to ‘unfair revenue generation’ for Indian Railways.