The Pune Railway Division authorities have revealed that there has been a notable drop this summer in the number of people who have been travelling by train without a ticket. According to an IE report, the Railway collected a fine of Rs 6.71 crore from over 79000 passengers who were caught travelling without an authorised ticket.
Believe it or not, this number is actually less than the number of unauthorised travellers who were caught without a ticket travelling in trains last summer. The report suggests that in 2023 summer, around 1.03 lakh train passengers were caught without a ticket by the Travelling Ticket Examiners (TTEs).
Why is the number of ticketless travellers on trains so high?
Summer is the time when people are looking to escape to a colder destination. A senior official from the Pune Railway Division told IE that the months from April to June are considered to be vacation months, which thus leads to an increase in demand for tickets.
To meet the high demand, the Railway runs special trains but there are always people who don’t manage to get the tickets on time. They then tend to commute without a ticket. The official said that they do take strict action against such an offence and penalise such travellers to discourage them from travelling without a ticket.
Comparing the drop from last summer
The Pune Railway Division informed IE that last year in April 2022, around 36,579 people were caught travelling in trains without a ticket. However, this year in April, 28,167 travellers were caught doing the same.
In the month of May last year, 36,936 passengers were caught ticketless while this year in May, 26,188 ticketless passengers were caught. So you see, the drop is indeed significant.
There are also cases where people book the ticket for a lower class but tend to travel via a higher class in trains. Authorities said that they caught 24,891 travellers commuting with such ‘irregular tickets’ between April and June this year and recovered Rs 1.5 crore in fines from such people.
Similarly, people were also penalised for unbooked luggage. Around 509 passengers were caught with unbooked luggage during the first three months of this fiscal and as per IE, the Railway earned Rs 57,000 just by imposing penalties.