Title - COPING WITH FESTIVE RUSH : SCR to crack down on touts

. CCTV to keep a watch on touts at booking counters.

. Raids being conducted on travel agents for illegal bookings To conduct random address checking of booked tickets.

Hyderabad: The South Central Railway, which is running 132 special trains on busy routes during this festival season, has also undertaken steps for regular inspections to prevent irregularities in ticket bookings and reservations. Commercial, vigilance and security departments are conducting raids in the premises of unauthorised and authorised travel agents with the help of local police to check blocking of reservation under fictitious names and subsequent sale of transferred tickets, SCR authorities informed in a press release issued on Monday.

Also special efforts are being taken for detecting fake tickets, forged tickets, resale of tickets, reuse of used tickets, misuse of blank paper tickets, extra fare tickets, circular tours tickets and unsold tickets, they added. Information of additional coaches is being entered into the passenger reservation system directly so that the waiting list would be automatically updated. In addition, special watch is kept on unusually high transactions by any particular Enquiry cum Reservation Clerk to detect any possible connivance with touts.

The railway officials pointed out, that CCTV cameras were installed at reservation counters to monitor and prevent activities of touts. Arrangements are being made to man the additional coaches and special trains with travelling ticket examiners to prevent any irregularity, SCR informed.

South Central Railway is running 132 Special Trains to popular destinations such as Secunderabad, Visakhapatnam, Tirupati, Kakinada, Shirdi, Nanded, Aurangabad, Chennai, Bangalore, Jaipur, Santragachi, Jammu Tawi etc., to clear extra rush of passengers during the months of October and November.

In order to prevent cornering of reservation of berths by agents and touts and to ensure the availability of berths for the genuine passengers, SCR authorities would be contacting the passengers randomly over phone to establish the genuineness of the reservation tickets made by them. Railway authorities urged the passengers to cooperate with the department in ascertaining the genuineness of the transactions.