Drive against touts, hawkers brought good results: WR

Mumbai: Western Railway Friday claimed that its drive against touts, illegal hawkers, people travelling on foot-boards and males travelling in ladies compartments, has been a success and resulted in better facilities for passengers.

Udai Shukla, Inspector General of Railway Protection Force-cum-Chief Security Commissioner of WR, in a press conference today said that it hoped that the special drive of the RPF will succeed in creating long-lasting effect.

"The RPF launched the drive in two phases. In the first phase, it cracked down on hawkers and touts while in the second one it cracked a whip against foot-board travellers and errant male entrants into coaches meant for female travellers," he said.

While in the first phase from June 16 to 30, WR registered 108 cases of touting under section 143 of the Indian Railway Act while 3,033 cases of hawking were filed under section 144 of the Act.

Shukla said since the pattern of selling tickets has changed drastically and over 60 per cent tickets are sold through e-ticketing now-a-days, touts were also altering their modus operandi.

On the touts, who were arrested for their involvement in illegal sale of e-tickets, Shukla said till June this year, 308 touts have been held, while the figure stood at 71 and 30 in 2015 and 2014 respectively in the corresponding period.

He attributed the good results to the training given to the investigating officers.

"Earlier, our staff were not well-trained to detect online fraud cases, but now they been trained and this is the major reason why we have successfully detected so many cases of fraud e-ticketing," Shukla said.

He cited a case in which Vapi-based touts and their kingpin were arrested and tickets worth Rs 52 lakh recovered from them.