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In the last financial year, passenger train services were shut for almost two months due to coronavirus-related restrictions. As a result, the national transporter has been financially hit hard and now as RTI has revealed that during FY21, ticketless travellers on the railway network dipped by almost 73% to Rs 27.57 lakh from Rs 1.10 crore in FY20 and the amount of fine collected has also gone down by 74.4% to only Rs 143.81 crore against a whopping Rs 561.73 crore in FY20.
Ticketless travellers
Ticketless travellers have been a major source of concern for railway authorities.
“Travelling ticketless or with an unauthorised ticket is a long-standing challenge before the Indian Railways. On its part, the Railways makes informative, educative and punitive measures to discourage people from doing the same,” Railway spokesperson DJ Narain was quoted by news agency PTI.
But the figure in FY21 shows the trend of ticketless travel is not gone away. As the nation witnessed a unprecedented situation during last year.
Almost 50 days no train service was there except some shramik special train. But the regular train services was started during January, 2021 and after a three months period train service again halted from April, 2021, added Narain.
Lockdown impact
As many as 8,577 people were caught travelling in trains without ticket on Central and Western lines in the June to September period last year.
According to an official of Eastern Railway, around 4,500 passengers were caught during April-September last year for travelling without ticket and the figure was higher in pre-Covid period.
Source of revenue
Indian Railways has earned Rs 1,938 crore through fines imposed on ticketless travellers between 2016 and 2020, a rise of 38.57 % from 2012-2016.
The Railways earned Rs 405.30 crore as penalties from ticketless travellers in 2016-17. In 2017-18, it recovered Rs 441.62 crore and it earned Rs 530.06 crore in 2018-19. In 2019-20 indian railway earned Rs 561.73 crore and in 2020-21 it is only 143.81 crore.
A passenger travelling without a ticket needs to pay a minimum fine of Rs 250 along with the cost of the ticket. If a passenger refuses to pay the fine, the person is handed over to the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and booked under Section 137 of the Railways Act.