To curb illegal selling of railway tickets, the Railway Police Force (RPF) has launched a crackdown and arrested touts and retailers of illegal software.
During the drive, RPF personnel conducted regular inspections at railway stations, reservation counters and online content to detect and apprehend unauthorised ticket booking agents.
Up to 42 illegal software were detected with the arrest of 955 touts, developers, super sellers, sellers and retailers.
Touting activities occur due to the gap between demand and supply of reserved accommodations. During rush period such as festivals, summer vacations, holidays, when demand exceeds availability, instances of attempt to misuse the reservation system come to the RPF’s notice.
RPF conducts regular checks in Passenger Reservation Systems (PRS), booking offices, platforms, trains to prevent unauthorised ticketing activities using scripting software.
Checks and balances
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has deployed various checks and balances to prevent unscrupulous activities. For instance, creation of only one IRCTC user ID on a given mobile number and email ID. Further, setting a limit of booking six railway tickets by an individual user in a month. This limit has been revised to 12 railway tickets in a month for those users who have linked their user ID with their respective Aadhaar number and ensured that at least one of the passengers in the passenger list is verifiable through Aadhaar.
IRCTC checks user IDs on a daily basis and deactivates IDs found indulging in malpractices like fast booking of tickets. It also checks Tatkal tickets booked in first minute for frivolous users and cancels such tickets.
