Ambala: Two railway employees were caught after raiding Gidderbaha, a small railway station allegedly involved in booking ‘Tatkal’ rail tickets charging huge amounts from passengers in connivance with the brokers having the network of brokers spread across many states. Vigilance caught the fraud of Tatkal tickets of eight people from Muhammadabad station of Uttar Pradesh to Lokmanya Tilak Terminus Mumbai at about 1130 km distance in connivance with middlemen taking huge amounts of money depriving other passengers of their rights. When this ticket was booked at Gidderbaha station, no passenger had come to book the ticket at that time. Vigilance sealed and confiscated the tickets amount worth Rs 11,800. Information revealed, a network of brokers has spread across the country who charge huge amounts from passengers in the name of booking confirmed tickets and also give some part of it to railway employees.
Inspector Sandeep Kumar of Northern Railway’s Vigilance had received information that at Gidderbaha station, ‘Tatkal’ tickets were issued and fraud was being done through middlemen. On this basis, a raid was conducted and two railway employees were arrested. Their names have not been disclosed so far. Since most of the routes remain busy throughout the year, only waiting tickets are available on such routes and the passengers have to fall into the trap of brokers for tickets on routes like Amritsar to Howrah, Howrah to Mumbai, New Delhi to Muzaffarpur, New Delhi to Patna etc. Since Tatkal tickets are available only a day before the journey and their quota gets exhausted in few minutes. At the stations where the staff is less or slow in work, they are not even able to confirm the ‘Tatkal’ tickets.
The question arises, how did these ticket brokers reach out to passengers? Investigation is underway on this by the railway vigilance department. The network of brokers is spread from one state to another and various railway agencies are involved in it. At Gidderbaha railway station, a clerk was caught making Tatkal tickets at the reservation counter, while was on duty elsewhere. The clerk was being asked to book tickets by himself when in train number 15181, two tickets were made for eight people in sleeper class. The vigilance team had already reached the station. As soon as the time for making ‘Tatkal’ tickets started, the vigilance team caught the employee immediately. During interrogation, the employees admitted that tickets were being made for brokers. The railway vigilance team also conducted raids at Meerut railway station where it was detected that ‘Tatkal’ tickets were prepared from Lucknow to Mumbai. Similar raids were conducted at Nanaksar, Chandigarh and Kupwara & Pulwama in Srinagar where ‘Tatkal’ tickets were prepared for Lucknow and other railway stations in Uttar Pradesh.
