{"id":1184,"date":"2019-09-24T18:05:15","date_gmt":"2019-09-24T12:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2019-09-24T18:05:19","modified_gmt":"2019-09-24T12:35:19","slug":"you-scratch-my-back-and-i-scratch-yours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/?p=1184","title":{"rendered":"\u201cyou scratch my back and I scratch yours\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Irregularities practiced in ticket checking earnings throughout Indian Railways<\/strong><\/p>\n

General and voiceless passengers suffer because of ticket checking irregularities<\/strong><\/p>\n

The squad TTEs, are the\u00a0son in laws of Rlys with a decisive influence with\u00a0Unions<\/strong><\/p>\n

The safety, security, and comfort of the reserved passengers into serious jeopardy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Window dressing exercise with serious implications on the safety\/security of passengers<\/strong><\/p>\n

Surresh Tripathi<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"One category of earning of Indian Railways showing a sustained increase is Ticket Checking earning.<\/strong>\u00a0As per the Statistics of the Railway Ministry, up to February 2019 in the financial year 2018-19, it is Rs 1658 crores as compared to Rs 696 Crores in 2016 up to February. The increase is more than 138%. One who takes the Statistics on face value may tend to congratulate the Railways and its Ticket Checking Staff (TTEs) for such performance but, in fact, it is another facet of Indian Railways, which pays little heed to the qualitative details of its performance.<\/p>\n

It is the most spectacular of its window dressing exercise with serious implications on the safety and security of passengers. The lion\u2019s share of the amount is from Irregular Tickets and not from Ticketless travel. Ticketless travel will definitely reduce in proportion to the intensity of ticket checking and charging of cases. However, the irregular ticket travel will show a sustained increase given the way the modus operandi of the process is worked out by the Railways.<\/p>\n

\n

\"\"The ticket checking earning of the Railways is part of the Other Coaching Earnings. It is the earning booked by the TTEs from travelers without any tickets or without a valid ticket for a particular class (such as Sleeper, 3AC, etc.) in the form of penalty and other dues. The major part of this earning is from the Squad TTEs. The squad TTEs, with a few exceptions, are the preferred son in laws of Commercial department of Railways with a decisive influence with Trade Unions. They have a lot of impunity due to the patronization of the Unions.<\/p>\n

Advantages of TA\/DA and posting nearer home to get their personal jobs done make them the ideal lot to be the comrades of the Unions. The squads TTEs form the loyal foot soldiers and contributors of the Trade unions. They have also mastered a smart way of meeting the targets assigned to them without putting any serious hard work. The\u00a0plaint\u00a0and the servile administration has to be given something to cheer about by meeting any target it fixes. It\u2019s a win-win situation or an unholy nexus of \u201cyou scratch my back and\u00a0I\u00a0scratch yours\u201d.<\/p>\n

The modus operandi is to target the passengers who cannot find reserved accommodation but are capable and willing to pay extra to get entry into a reserved coach. These are migrant labors of UP, Bihar, Odisha, West Bengal, Assam, etc. Such trains are having few General Coaches and the Waitlisted and the General ticket holders are hundreds of times more than the capacity. The squad TTEs authorize them to travel in Sleeper Coaches by making Excess Fare Tickets (EFT). The amount collected per passenger will be many times more than the ticketless passengers with no effort to find them and realize the amount on the part of the TTEs.<\/p>\n

\"\"The passengers themselves will come and ask the Squad TTEs to make Excess Fare Tickets. The Squad TTEs do not have to even enter the overcrowded coaches. They can even collect the EFT sitting at the Platform and the helpless General Class migrant passengers make a beeline towards the TTE. Once the EFT is made, the passengers will crowd\u2013 into the reserved coaches and occupy any space available including the toilets.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The EFTs are given to the General Ticket holders and also the Ticketless passengers. This part of the earning will be accounted for as realized from irregular and invalid tickets. The excess charging is done in the following manner-<\/p>\n

1. Charging up to the destination<\/strong>\u00a0which will realize heavy amounts but, it is difficult to answer to the complaints and grievances of the reserved passengers who suffer the overcrowding despite a reserved ticket booked 4 months in advance.<\/p>\n

2. Charging up to the point of detection<\/strong>\u00a0of the invalid ticket holders. This will help the TTE to answer the complaint that he has charged the passenger with invalid ticket and advised him to deboard or go to the General Coach and the working TTE and RPF are to be blamed for not deboarding the passengers.<\/p>\n

This reduces the earning of the Squad TTE but, all through the journey of the passenger, other\u00a0enroute\u00a0Squads will charge him to meet the squad earning targets. This way, the irregular travelers are made regular by the Squad TTEs.<\/p>\n

Therefore,\u00a0these passengers are never deboarded up to their destinations putting the safety, security, and comfort of the reserved passengers including senior citizen, women, and children into serious jeopardy.<\/strong>\u00a0The reserved coaches of the trains to and from these States are much worse and overcrowded than the General Coaches with even the toilets occupied by the migrant worker passengers whose travel is authorized by the TTEs through EFTs.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Photo Caption:\u00a0<\/em>Importance of ticket checking earning:<\/em>\u00a0GM\/CR D. K. Sharma and DRM\/Mumbai Division, Central Railway S. K. Jain present on the spot of ticket checking on a local platform at Mumbai CST.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The ID cards of the reserved passengers are checked and noted by the working onboard traveling ticket examiners. However, for the EFT- regularized passengers, nothing is verified and there is no means of tracking them in the future. There have been cases of thefts, trafficking and even murder in trains, though very rare. Railway\u2019s model of increasing the Ticket Checking Earning is this and it does not reflect any good work done but by merely taking advantage of the helplessness of the migrant worker passengers and by putting the safety and security of the reserved passengers into heavy risk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The squad TTEs move in search of greener pastures, such as Chennai, Coimbatore, Trivandrum, Delhi, Mumbai, etc regardless of their territorial jurisdiction depending on festival seasons or targeting specific trains preferred by migrant workers so that the earning target can be fulfilled in one or two working days. The monthly earning target of a Squad TTE has been increased from Rs 1 Lakh to Rs 3 Lakhs.<\/p>\n

‘Rail Samachar’ realized, that with the present modus operandi, some of the TTEs are able to achieve this target within a single day. This practice is prevalent in all the Zones of the Indian Railways. By plucking only the low hanging fruits, the TTEs do not the required effort to curb the actual ticketless passengers, identify the transfer of ticket cases and other prevailing frauds and irregularities which need much more effort and care. By this practice, the TTEs and RPF encourage the entry of unauthorized passengers to the Railway premises and coaches.<\/p>\n

RPF is the masters of unauthorized vending who enters into a tie-up with the unauthorized vendors who literally come and give the RPF cases required to meet their targets without any effort. This is yet another arena of unholy nexus which will require a separate article. Another party being benefitted from this practice of Squad TTEs is the Catering Contractors of the trains with Pantry Cars who have quoted unrealistically high rates of the License fee, as they get captive customers in very large numbers in the train to sell their menu.<\/p>\n

The Railway\u00a0has proposed clone trains and also started a few Antyodaya which is not scheduled and publicized properly to make any dent on the huge mismatch on the demand and supply in passenger services. What is more unacceptable is the devious means to capitalize on this by putting the safety and security of the passengers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Irregularities practiced in ticket checking earnings throughout Indian Railways General and voiceless passengers suffer because…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"koo_publish_custom_meta":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-main-story"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1186,"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions\/1186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/railsamachar.com\/english\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}