Ticketless travellers question flying squad on card swiping machines

Under prime minister Narendra Modi’s ambitious initiative of ‘Digital India’, the ticket checking squad in suburban railways is not having proper gadgets like ‘Pointof-Sale (POS) machine’ to swipe debit/credit cards to collect fines from ticketless travellers in Mumbai.

A Chief Ticketing Inspector (CTI), part of the fortress check squad meant to catch persons travelling without tickets, told the Free Press Journal that few passengers do not wish to pay cash and ask them to get POS machine to swipe their cards. “In the lack of POS machine, the ticketless travellers are asked to withdraw cash from nearby ATM booth,” said the CTI, who added that ‘it is not practically possible to escort the ticketless passengers to ATM booth.’

The non-payment of fine from ticketless travellers would incur loss to Indian Railways but the ticket checking squad takes all efforts to stave off any loss to the Central government.

“We cannot let them go sans paying fine for travelling ticketless. We ask them to keep their cellphones with us to ensure that they would come back with cash to pay fine; or their relatives or friends are called in if they do not have cash,” said a senior ticket collector at Dadar station. A member of flying squad in Western Railway (WR) said most of the ticketless travellers are youngsters and women who are adamant to pay fine.

Meanwhile, senior Public Relations Officer (PRO) AK Jain said, “The Central Railway is already promoting Digital India and we started all digital ticketing system at CSTM, Ambarnath, Badlapur, Dadar, LTT and Kalyan stations. The issue will be further sent to the concerned department.”

“We will find out a solution to this genuine problem our ticket checking squad is facing,” said a senior official from WR.

“An internal discussion has been made to develop a High Definition (HD) software in which the passenger can swipe their debit/credit cards. The software will be very much helpful to our staff. I have heard that in some divisions, the software is being used on trial basis,” a divisional chief ticket inspector told the Free Press Journal.