IRCTC ORDERS PROBE INTO DISTRIBUTION OF ‘PROPAGANDIST’ PAPER IN TRAIN

A “propagandist” newspaper distributed on board the Bangalore-chennai Shatabdi Express has snowballed into a controversy, drawing political reactions and prompting the IRCTC to initiate an inquiry in the matter.

The IRCTC has admitted that the paper, ‘The Aryavarth Express’, was “unauthorised”.

The matter was raised by passenger Gopika Bakshi on Twitter.“this morning I boarded the Bangalore-chennai Shatabdi Express only to be greeted by this blatantly propagandist publication on every other seat - The Aryavarth Express. Had never even heard of it. How is @Irctcofficial allowing this?” Bakshi wrote on the microblogging site on Friday.

“We have ordered an inquiry into this and action will be taken against those found responsible. This paper is not among the Irctc-approved publications,” IRCTC spokesperson Anand Jha told reporters.

Officials said the IRCTC, the ticketing-and-catering arm of the railways, has approved ‘Deccan Herald’ and one other local paper as the two publications to be distributed on board trains in the region.

The divisional railway manager, Chennai said an inquiry is being conducted by the DRM Bengaluru.

“The latest update is that DRM Bangalore is investigating the issue on how an unauthorised newspaper found its way into the train. We like to inform everyone that the train belongs to Bengaluru division and the incident happened there. We are sure they would take appropriate action,” he said in a tweet. Later, IRCTC said in a tweet that the newspaper was found inside approved newspapers.

IRCTC SAID IN A TWEET THAT THE NEWSPAPER WAS FOUND INSERTED INTO APPROVED NEWSPAPERS