1,000 ticketless travellers caught in MTC buses daily
hno::mad2::mad2:
The Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) is cracking down hard against ticketless travelling. Catching an average of 1,000 offenders in city buses every day, it earned about Rs 1.25 crore in fines since January this year.
The MTC, with about 600 checking inspectors, has now roped in branch managers for ticket checking at important points.
"We catch at least one or two persons travelling without tickets in every service. About 50% of them are in the 20-25 age group. They deliberately don't take tickets just for fun or to show their heroism,'" a senior MTC official said.
While 25% of the offenders do not buy tickets beacuse they are poor, the other 25% get in through the front entrance and are hesitant to pass on the money to the conductor through fellow passengers, the official added.
Last year, the MTC caught 1.27 lakh people for travelling without tickets; this figure was 65,000 in 2007. In 2009, the number is expected to double compared to last year.
After several complaints that many inspectors were troubling even genuine passengers and causing delays by stopping buses during peak hours, the MTC has asked inspectors to ensure that checking does not evoke complaints from genuine passengers.
The inspectors concerned have their own arguments. One of them said: "Our difficulty is that we don't have a mechanism like in the railways where railway police personnel accompany checking inspectors. Also, we can't take the violators to police station every time. Sometimes, offenders push us aside and run away.''
Another added: "Though we can collect maximum fine of Rs 500 from a ticketless passenger, it is not possible many times as mostly we can only collect the fines on the spot.''