The South Central zone of Indian Railways is mulling commando or a guerilla-like operation in order to keep a check on ticketless passengers.

Super-interesting step by Indian Railways! Imagine a scenario where trains are stopped midway and Indian Railways officials spring a surprise ticket check on passengers. No, this is not a scene from a movie. It’s what the South Central zone of Indian Railways is planning to do to catch ticketless passengers! The South Central zone of Indian Railways is mulling commando or a guerilla-like operation in order to keep a check on ticketless passengers. Under this operation, FE Online learns from South Central zone that the railway checking personnel hide in the bushes, which are adjacent to the track and then halt the train in order to conduct the checks. Moreover, the checks conducted by the railway checking personnel last up to three hours, following which the checking team moves to another location based on the frequency of the trains.

The railway officials place detonators on the tracks and blast them. On hearing the mild blast, the driver stops the train. Another way of conducting the checks is ‘foot plating’. Under this system, a supervisor travels in the loco and the train is stopped at a pre-designated site, for checks. Other than these, the railways has also introduced incognito checks, bus raids and fortress checks. Here, the ticket checking staff disguised as passengers, board the trains as well as mingle with passengers and all of a sudden, check for tickets.

In a bus raid, the railways hire private or RTC buses for the ticket checking staff to move into a particular railway station. On reaching the station, the staff checks the tickets of the passengers and in case any passenger is found travelling without a ticket, he/she are taken to the nearest magistrate for prosecution in the same bus.

Under the Fortress checks, the railway authorities block the entry and exit points of a station. Following this, the passengers are checked for valid tickets while other trespassers, as well as beggars, are driven away from the railway platforms.

By using these tactics, the South Central Railway collected Rs 1.47 crore in the last 11 months, states a report in The Hindu. The zonal railway caught 28,534 passengers for ticketless travel, prosecuted 246 defaulters, and detected 247 cases of vendors overcharging, the report said.