Ticketless Passengers Allowed To Travel On A Shatabdi Express, Probe Ordered Into Ticket Examiners

The North Central Railway (NCR) has ordered a probe after it came to light during a surprise check that a chief train ticket examiner connived with ticketless passengers and allowed them to travel on a premium train during the festive season. "Complaints against TTEs for conniving with passengers to allow them to travel without tickets on a premium train or overcharging passengers without issuing excess-fair tickets have come to light and we have ordered a probe into these cases," Shashi Kant Tripathi, Chief Public Relations Officer, NCR, said. "Strict action will be taken against such officials as the railways follows a zero-tolerance policy in cases of corruption," he added.

According to railway officials, on October 29, a surprise check was conducted by the traffic and commercial department on the New Delhi-Lucknow Swarn Shatabdi Express train between Tundla and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, following confidential information that the TTE had allegedly allowed people to travel without tickets after accepting money from them.

"One of our assistant traffic managers, Dinesh Kapil, received information through sources that a lot of passengers are ticketless on the New Delhi-Lucknow Shatabdi. He consulted his senior, Deputy Chief Traffic Manager Amit Sudarshan, and on his advice, immediately constituted a team, with Assistant Commercial Manager A K Sinha and a male as well as a female TTE as its members," an official from the Prayagraj rail division said. "The team boarded the train at Tundla and was supposed to check three coaches -- C-11 to C-13. While inspecting the C-11 coach, they were stunned to find 21 people travelling without tickets," he added.

According to railway officials, a group of 21 people was supposed to travel on that day but due to some reason, when they did not turn up, the TTE, in collusion with the train waiter and attendant, allowed those many people to board the train after allegedly accepting bribes from them. "The inspection team found that the C-11 coach was completely packed. When all passengers were asked to show their tickets, it turned out that 21 people were ticketless," a railway source said. "When the inspecting officials started issuing challans to them, they alleged that they had already paid between Rs 2,000 and Rs 3,000 each to the TTE, who had allowed them to travel," he added.

According to the source, the TTE was not there in the coach at the time of the inspection. He arrived at the spot after around half an hour on being called on his mobile phone and made several excuses for not being present in the coach. "Meanwhile, when the train stopped at Etawah, many ticketless passengers de-boarded the coach and ran away. The entire surprise inspection was video-recorded and a report sent to the divisional headquarters in Prayagraj for action," the source said.

In another case, a passenger complained of being overcharged Rs 1,300 by a TTE between the Deen Dayal Upadhyay and Mirzapur stations in Uttar Pradesh. In his complaint, the passenger said he had a partially-confirmed ticket and the TTE took money on the coach attendant's mobile phone number online, without issuing an excess-fair ticket to him.

"The DRM office has taken a very serious note of both the incidents and ordered a thorough probe. The DRM has instructed that if the allegations are found to be true, these officials should be handed a strict punishment," a railway official said.

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