Illegal ticket agents use search engine to run biz

The Railway Protection Force (RPF) of Western Railways has reported a pattern wherein touts are seen to place their advertisements with the help of a search engine that directly helps them to book railway tickets immediately. The passengers call a search engine ‘Justdial’ in order to book a railway ticket urgently.

The RPF officials said that the search engine emails the information to the caller and the callers information is also shared with the agents who are listed with them.

“The passengers tend to call up Justdial to find out the booking agents. They end up getting in touch with the touts who charge them Rs 1000 extra on every ticket,” said Anup Shukla, Senior Divisional Security Commissioner RPF, Western Railway.

The statistics from the RPF Western Railway said that at least 1000 tickets were seized from these touts between January to April this year. Last year, at least 2000 tickets were seized from these agents in the same period. These touts were booked under the Section of 143 of Railway Act for carrying out unauthorised business of procuring and supplying of railway tickets.

On Friday, RPF, Andheri registered a case against a 20-year-old man identified as Rajkumar Gupta for issuing rail tickets in an unauthorised manner. He had registered his name as a ticketing agent on Justdial.

The RPF recovered 24 train tickets amounting to Rs 33,715 and a laptop from Gupta.

“Gupta had charged Rs 1000 extra for a Mumbai to Lucknow train ticket. The ticket for Mumbai to Lucknow general fare is only Rs 1600. Gupta had also charged Rs 1500 extra for booking an air-conditioned berth compartment for the same distance,” said an RPF official.

Officials have now requested the passengers to book tickets from IRCTC website. “It is important that passengers only book a ticket from authorised booking agent and avoid booking a ticket from any other search engine,” added Shukla.