Mumbai:
As you wait in serpentine queues to book train tickets, fraudsters are joining hands with railway staff to push you off your seat by getting confirmed booking.
Look carefully at the booking time of each of the above railway tickets. Just minutes before 8 am, the official time at which ticket booking counters open for the public.
So, while you and other passengers form serpentine queues to book train tickets, thousands of such confirmed tickets are clandestinely booked through the e-ticketing passenger reservation service across the country.
It's a daily rail ticket booking scam that could run into a few hundred crores annually.
MiD DAY has obtained several documents indicating that thousands of rail tickets are booked barely two minutes before the reservation counters open for people who queue up at booking offices. The computers at reservation counters are active at 8 am.
"Culprits have been arrested after raids were conducted by the railways' commercial and vigilance department," said Central Railway's chief spokesperson Shrinivas Mudgerikar. "We have advertised our vigilance department's contact details and will take action against unauthorised sale of tickets."
Sources in the railways said a few thousand tickets are cleared in the crucial two-minute period. The names and other reservation prerequisites are fed into a special software and this data is immediately processed.
Insiders said the scam was perpetrated in connivance with technical staff.
More than a few lakh rupees are distributed to a few officials in the Computer Section for making the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation's ticketing service available to hundreds of clandestine operators.
"These operators use fictitious but common names like Khan, Singh or Sharma to book tickets," the sources said. "Even single names like Nisha, Reshma and Karim are fudged so that the tickets can easily be sold to prospective customers.
Operators make a thriving business by selling these tickets to those travelling to cities in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and New Delhi.
- Ticket PNR No: 2103821429
- Booked at: 7:58:22
- Ticket PNR No: 8339503795
- Booked at: 7:58:43
- Ticket PNR No: 8240753475
- Booked at: 7:59:08
Look carefully at the booking time of each of the above railway tickets. Just minutes before 8 am, the official time at which ticket booking counters open for the public.
So, while you and other passengers form serpentine queues to book train tickets, thousands of such confirmed tickets are clandestinely booked through the e-ticketing passenger reservation service across the country.
It's a daily rail ticket booking scam that could run into a few hundred crores annually.
MiD DAY has obtained several documents indicating that thousands of rail tickets are booked barely two minutes before the reservation counters open for people who queue up at booking offices. The computers at reservation counters are active at 8 am.
"Culprits have been arrested after raids were conducted by the railways' commercial and vigilance department," said Central Railway's chief spokesperson Shrinivas Mudgerikar. "We have advertised our vigilance department's contact details and will take action against unauthorised sale of tickets."
Sources in the railways said a few thousand tickets are cleared in the crucial two-minute period. The names and other reservation prerequisites are fed into a special software and this data is immediately processed.
Insiders said the scam was perpetrated in connivance with technical staff.
More than a few lakh rupees are distributed to a few officials in the Computer Section for making the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation's ticketing service available to hundreds of clandestine operators.
"These operators use fictitious but common names like Khan, Singh or Sharma to book tickets," the sources said. "Even single names like Nisha, Reshma and Karim are fudged so that the tickets can easily be sold to prospective customers.
Operators make a thriving business by selling these tickets to those travelling to cities in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and New Delhi.
