The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has planned to intensify checks against unauthorised booking agents in the Salem Division.
In view of two upcoming major festive vacations, Christmas and Pongal, the RPF has planned to intensify checks against unauthorised ticketing agents to ensure that commoners get a fair chance to book e-tickets through Tatkal window and commoners not duped by unauthorised agents.
Railway officials have found that unauthorised agents use bogus IDs to procure tickets online and they have been found selling these tickets at premium rates.
Raids conducted
Railway officials have been conducting raids time to time to check such unauthorised bookings and have also booked them under section 143 of Railways Act.
Divisional Security Commandant S. Shivasankaran said that unauthorised agents at times misuse passenger’s details to book tickets and passengers are not aware about this.
Personal details
“At times, agents ask for e-mail, phone numbers and other personal details of the passenger in the pretext of essential details required for booking tickets. They use such information to create bogus user IDs and the passenger may not be aware about this”, he said.
Mr. Shivasankaran said that sometines even authorised agents indulge in malpractice of booking tickets using personal or fake IDs. “During certain periods, authorised agents would not be able to access online Tatkal bookings during the same time window its available for commoners. To bypass this, even authorised agents book tickets from bogus or personal IDs and they are also considered as unauthorised bookings”, Mr.Shivasankaran said.
According to RPF officials, tickets booked through such unauthorised means are seized and severe action is being taken against the accused.
According to officials, till November this year, they have seized 250 live tickets worth ₹2.63 lakh from various stations under the Division.
RPF officials said that if the ticket is found booked through unauthorised means, the ticket would be cancelled and passenger would not be allowed to travel to using that ticket.
Till November this year, officials have booked 38 persons for indulging in the malpractice and have collected a fine of ₹69, 000 from the accused. Officials have also seized 569 expired tickets worth ₹7.67 lakh till November this year.
