earns huge Rs 1,097 crore! Imposing penalties on ticketless travellers has helped the national transporter over Rs 1,000 crore – a sum that could see an increase by the end Indian Railways of this financial year. According to an IE report, as many as 2,000 “touts” involved in the black marketing of railway tickets have been booked by Indian Railways across the nation. The whopping amount of Rs 1,097 crore has been saved between the duration of April 2017 to February 2018. According to some Railway officials another Rs 200 crore could be earned in March. In addition to this India Railways earned 600 crore extra per year with the help of “flexi fares” that were introduced two years ago. The flexi fare refers to the increase of fare based on demand in premium trains.
According to some officials, drives have been carried out by a large number of TTE staff, supported by security forces and were backed up by CCTV coverage across major railway stations. During these drives, there were “ambush checks” and “fortress checks” by the officials. Adding to this, the officials also said that the general unreserved class in long-distance trains mostly have a large number of offenders.