Title - Rly catches hundreds for illegal reservations

In an intensive crackdown on touts and unauthorised travel agents, the Vigilance Department of the Northern Railways (NR) made hundreds of arrests from the beginning of this year till September. As many as 699 touts, 25 unauthorised travel agents and 1,597 persons travelling on transferred tickets were caught apart from 208 unauthorised vendors.  The crackdown also netted ticketing officials who connived with the touts.

A senior official of NR said that a total of 42 decoy checks were carried out successfully near counters where Tatkal tickets were booked. During the checks, 1,556 railway employees were pulled up for indulging in malpractices. An amount of over Rs 9.58 lakh was realised as Railway dues from the cases of transferred tickets.

"During the period, 699 touts were apprehended and prosecuted under Section 143/144 of Railways Act 1989. Action was also taken against Railway staff for their connivance with touts, apart from the dismissal of two commercial staff and an RPF personnel.  Two other RPF personnel were also hauled up for violating the Disciplinary Rules. In another case, three reservation staff of a PRS centre were slapped with major penalties and shunted out from their present postings for similar acts,” he added.