A massive drive was conducted by the Southern Railway’s Railway Police Force (SR RPF) against all touts (ticket resellers) in six divisions - Chennai, Salem, Madurai, Tiruchchirappalli, Thiruvananthapuram and Palakkad - for three days between August 28 and 30 this year. A total of 32 offenders were arrested and 1787 tickets were seized on the whole as a result of this massive crackdown.
These 1787 tickets included 271 live tickets valued at Rs 3,81,446; 621 expired tickets valued at Rs 12,71,393; 892 e-tickets valued at Rs 16,52,840 and three Passenger Reservation System (PRS) tickets valued at Rs 5,420. The total value of this seizure stands a little over Rs 33 lakh.
During the raid, mobiles, computers, printers, CPUs and the likes which were utilised for illegally booking the train tickets were also confiscated by the SR RPF. In Chennai division alone, 11 touts were apprehended, with Tiruchirapalli coming second with 8 offenders. Two of these cases from Tiruchirapalli have been closed with the accused convicted and fined Rs 5000.
According to Section 143 1.b. of the Railway Act, 1989, unauthorised reselling of tickets is punishable with imprisonment for a term which may be extended to three years, or with fine which may extend to ten thousand rupees. In the past, Railway officials have expressed that the present provisions of the law were not stringent enough to curb the practice of touting.
In June this year, ‘Operation Thunder’ by Southern Railway apprehended 32 touts and seized tickets valued at over Rs 50 lakh from them in all its six divisions. A total of 436 advance reservation tickets (including e-tickets, expired and upcoming journeys) valued Rs 53.2 lakh were seized as part of this operation.
An RPF official was quoted saying nearly 400 touts have been held from 205 cities across the country, most of them from West Bengal, in the crackdown.