The Railways needs to make announcements about travelling with valid tickets
Representational Image
Western Railway (WR) has intensified its ticket-checking drives across suburban, mail/express, passenger, and holiday special trains, mid-day recently reported. From Mumbai AC local trains alone, between April and August 2025, Rs 1.20 crore was collected in fines from ticketless passengers, officials said.
An official statement said that between April and August 2025, WR has recovered fines amounting to Rs 84.20 crore, 35 per cent higher than the same period last year and 13 per cent above the Railway Board’s target. Of this, Rs 23 crore was collected from the Mumbai suburban network alone.
According to Chief Public Relations Officer Vineet Abhishek, August 2025 witnessed a surge in action, with fines worth Rs 13.21 crore recovered from 2.39 lakh ticketless or irregular passengers, including unbooked luggage cases. This marked a 166 per cent jump compared to August last year. These jumps are extremely shameful to say the least, and it is shocking that there are such a high number of people travelling ticketless in the A/C compartment.
The Railways needs to make announcements about travelling with valid tickets. They need to make frequent checks and stiffer fines for ticketless travel. Posters mentioning fines and how ticketless travel is a punishable offence on platforms and inside trains, too, will reinforce the message.
Commuters often raise valid concerns about trains. This paper advocates for people, highlighting shoddy work at stations, platform pain, and poor-quality announcements. Yet this is a two way street — honesty, buying tickets, and adhering to rules are essential. When one has no respect for a public service, when some want to cheat then complaining about the facility becomes a one-sided subject.
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