Southern Railway complains to DGP about personnel travelling sans ticket

In what may bring embarrassment to the State police, the Southern Railway has written to the DGP, Greater Chennai Police Commissioner and ADGP of the Railway Police complaining about ticketless travel by personnel.

In the letter dated February 16, Senior Divisional Commercial Manager R Harikrishan said the railway administration has received a lot of complaints from passengers that personnel on and off duty often travel in first and second class coaches of mail, express and also local trains (EMU) without valid tickets.

When ticket checking staff demand the officials to produce the travel authority, the latter merely show their identity cards and travel without a ticket. The railway official asked the senior officers to issue instructions from to their subordinates to travel only with valid tickets.

A Southern Railway official told DT Next that the staff often reported about instances of police personnel travelling without tickets. “Except RPF, all other personnel are treated as regular passengers unless specific reasons and they are bound to board trains only with tickets,” said the official. “When police personnel are not allowed to travel on government-run buses, they should be in possession of valid tickets to travel by trains, too,” the official added.

A travelling ticket examiner (TTE) said on condition of anonymity that there have been instances where he had to move out police personnel travelling without a valid ticket from the reserved coaches so that the passengers will not be affected.

“Once, I fined a woman constable Rs 500 after she merely flashed her ID card and wanted to encroach upon on a passenger’s berth,” he recalled.

The Police Department has not reacted to the letter from the Railway official.