Mumbai: In an attempt to stop ticketless travel in the railways, the railway imposes a fine on passengers traveling without tickets. It is learnt that this year, the Western Railways has set a target to collect Rs 200 crore in fines from passengers who travel without tickets. This is an increase from the earlier collection that amounted to Rs 174 crore during previous year.

Out of the target of Rs 200 crores, the Mumbai division alone is expected to collect Rs 100 crore, i.e., 50% of the set target. The trains at Bandra, Valsad, Udhna, and Surat in the Mumbai division to Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Odisha are attracting intense ticket checking drives in connection with this. During the Diwali festival, trains including Taptiganga, Udhna-Danapur, Surat-Bhagalpur, and Bandra-Hisar tend to be overcrowded, carrying double the capacity of passengers. Therefore, a thorough checking drive will be conducted on these trains, and fines will be collected from passengers without tickets.

To meet the target of Rs 200 crore, ticket checkers will need to collect Rs 7,000 to Rs 8,000 from passengers traveling on selected short-distance trains daily, while TCs on platform duty will have a target of Rs 6,000. TTEs traveling on long-distance trains will have to collect fines of Rs 15,000 per day to help achieve the Rs 200 crore target.

In the financial year 2023-24, the Western Railway set a target of Rs 140 crore for fines from passengers traveling without tickets. Against this, the diligent ticket checkers of the railway collected Rs 174 crore, which was 24 percent more than the set target. Meanwhile, this year, the Western Railway has set a target of Rs 200 crore to collect fines from violators. DeshGujarat