RailEnquiry

Hyderabad: The South Central Railways has collected nearly a crore through fines imposed after special checks on ticketless travelers and littering of railway premises.While SCR is raking in all this big money from its special checks, the actual number of offenders still remain almost the same, say officials.An estimated 40 per cent of travelers continue to take a free ride, indicate figures.Between April to August 2013, 32,800 persons were caught  littering and spitting on the railway premises and an amount of Rs 66 lakh was collected by way of penalties.Also, during each ticket checking drive, an average of Rs 5 lakh is collected at the major stations across the state like Kacheguda, Secunderabad or Vijayawada on any given day.A total of Rs 40 lakh has been collected from ticketless travelers so far.“Also during ‘fortress’ checks, which are done by covering all the entry and exit points at the station, there was an immediate rise in the sale of journey tickets across ticket counters by 15 per cent and an increase in the sale of platform tickets by 33 per cent,” said officials.Meanwhile, during the checks, it was noticed that out of the people who were stopped, roughly 35 per cent were found to be  ticketless or carrying un-booked luggage. A large number of touting activities at the counters has been exposed.