The Central Railway has caught 2,018 passengers, who were found travelling in Mumbai suburban locals amid the pandemic by carrying fake identity cards, and collected from them Rs 10.09 lakh fine in a little over a month that ended May 31, an official has said.
At present, only healthcare, frontline workers and government employees are allowed to travel in Mumbai suburban locals considering the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.
The passengers, who were found carrying fake ID cards, were caught between April 28 and May 31. The action was taken against them as they violated the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, the Central Railway official said on Thursday.
Railway staff in CR''s Mumbai division conducted a massive ticket checking drive in April and May, and collected Rs 9.50 crore from as many as 1.50 lakh ticketless passengers who were found travelling in non-suburban and suburban trains, an official release said.
Of the 1.50 lakh ticketless travellers, 54,000 were caught in May and an amount of Rs 3.33 crore was collected as penalty from them. It included 32,000 ticketless travellers from the suburban section and a fine of Rs 1.65 crore was collected from them, it said.
Besides this, special teams of the ticket-checking staff caught 1,269 passengers without mask and collected Rs 2.40 lakh fine from them between April 17 and June 2, the release added.
"The Central Railway, in its endeavour to provide better services to bonafide rail users and also to curb ticketless travel, regularly conducts intensive campaigns," CR''s chief spokesperson Shivaji Sutar said.
This is to ensure that only bonafide passengers travel in trains in accordance with the government guidelines and the COVID-19 protocols, he said.
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