Urgent Action Required to Address Irregularities in Reserved Coaches and TTE Activities

Admin

Current practices of Southern Railway’s commercial officers and TTE squads are causing significant financial loss to the railways and immense inconvenience to reserved passengers

#Railwhispers have received a release today from S. R. Sreeram, President, Kanyakumari District Railway Users’ Association (#KKDRUA) that KKDRUA have received numerous complaints regarding unreserved passengers boarding reserved coaches on long-distance trains operated by the Railway, particularly those travelling to eastern regions such as Howrah, Patna, Guwahati, and Dibrugarh etc. These passengers are causing significant inconvenience to reserved passengers who book their tickets well in advance. No issues have been reported with trains travelling from the eastern region to the southern direction. Frequently, many complaints have only been reported during travel from the southern to the eastern direction. Upon personally investigating this issue, KKDRUA have uncovered concerning practices involving #SouthernRailway Commercial officers and Ticket Travelling Examiners (#TTEs).

With the full approval and instructions of Zonal Railway authorities, Divisional Commercial Officers have established “one-man #TTE squads” with monthly fine collection targets ranging from ₹10 lakh to ₹25 lakh. These squads are granted flexible working hours and additional benefits, which also facilitate the collection of bribes from migrant workers. These squads specifically target migrant workers traveling on approximately 25 trains, such as 22503, 12659, 12507, 22641, 18190, 13352, 22643, 22838, 12666, 12663 etc. The one-man squad TTEs wait at the station entrance, such as at Madurai, Salem, Erode, Kollam, Palghat, Ernakulam, etc. stations, targeting migrant workers heading towards the unreserved ticket counter.

The TTEs call the migrant workers to discuss and ask for more information forcefully or convince them or strict order to them not to purchase a ticket from the counter. Instead of issuing proper tickets, TTEs impose fines based on shorter distances (e.g., Kanyakumari to Katpadi or Kanyakumari to Ernakulum etc.) rather than the full journey (e.g., Kollam to Guwahati or Madurai – Howrah, or Kanyakumari to Guwahati or Kanyakumari to New Jalpaiguri etc.). Passengers are then permitted to travel in reserved sleeper coaches, causing overcrowding and discomfort for reserved passengers.

KKDRUA have observed that in some coaches, instead of the permitted 88 passengers, more than 250 passengers are travelling with fine receipts issued by TTE squads. As per the rules, one-man TTE squads are not permitted to allocate or issue tickets for reserved Sleeper coaches; they should focus solely on unreserved coaches. But here there is a completely different working style. In some cases, TTEs collect bribes by issuing receipts for amounts lower than the fines collected (e.g., collecting ₹1000 but issuing a receipt for ₹900). This practice leads to significant revenue loss for Southern Railway.

Divisional Commercial Officers appear to overlook these irregularities, as the fines contribute to their performance metrics, leading to promotions, salary increments, and awards. Because of this, Railway Authorities’ action reserved passengers, who book tickets up to 60 days in advance, face daily struggles due to overcrowding in reserved coaches caused by these practices. The focus on fine collection for personal gain by commercial officers undermines the comfort and safety of legitimate passengers. All Divisional and Zonal Commercial Authorities are focused on reporting the amount of fines collected to the Railway Board, showcasing it as a significant achievement. Which divisions of Southern Railway has collected the highest amount in fines, as all divisions are in strong competition. The #RailwayBoard also prioritizes revenue generation over passenger welfare.

KKDRUA request following

1. Immediately abolish the one-man TTE squads and eliminate the practice of setting monthly fine collection targets. This will curb corrupt practices and ensure fair treatment of all passengers. Alternatively, one-man TTE squads are compulsory to check per day one train wise to collect the fine of 30 different trains per month basis one condition should be added also list of trains  prepared by Division office entered in hand terminal device. Example one lakh fine target fixing means it should collect from 30 different trains and different route different sector in full cover Divisional routes and also reduce the fine collection targets like ₹50,000 to one lakh per Month. If a train is checked today, the one-man TTE squads in particular TTE should be permitted to check the same train again only after a minimum of 7 to 10 days.

2. Deploy an adequate number of TTEs on every train to ensure strict monitoring of reserved coaches and limit the number of passengers per reserved coach to 80 + 8 Reservation Against Cancellation (#RAC) + 2 additional passengers for in case of emergency (total 90 passengers). Any passengers exceeding this limit should be deboarded immediately. Conduct regular checks every 200 Km distance with Railway Protection Force (#RPF) personnel equipped with necessary security measures to ensure the #Safety and #comfort of reserved passengers.

3. All types of one-man TTE squads and other railway checking staff discontinue the use of manual paper-based fine receipts and mandatorily adopt handheld terminal devices to record all passenger information, including Aadhaar card numbers, train numbers, and origin and destination stations. To prevent bribery, a compulsory digital payment system, such as UPI, should be implemented for all transactions. Recently, #IndianRailways announced that a Mobile number and Aadhaar card is mandatory for train ticket reservations.

4. If Southern Railway is unable to solve the unreserved passengers boarding reserved coaches problem permanently and implement the above demands, KKDRUA request that all sleeper coaches be declared unreserved and removed from the #IRCTC reservation system. This will prevent reserved passengers from facing ongoing issues, as only passengers with TTE-issued fine receipts would travel in these coaches. Southern Railway commercial department and one-man TTE squads fine receipt based

5. It is widely known that the Balasore rail accident resulted in numerous fatalities, many of whom were passengers traveling in a manner similar to those accommodated by one-man TTE squads in reserved coaches. This lack of accountability compromises the safety of Indian Railways and the nation. To address this, KKDRUA request to remove the all unreserved 2S coaches and increase the sleeper class in all migrant workers travel trains. Also allotment of 50% of sleeper class coaches exclusively for waitlisted migrant workers holding waitlisted PRS tickets. This will allow the remaining 50% of coaches to be reserved for passengers who book well in advance, ensuring they can travel without any obstacle. This will ensure accountability and transparency with regard to all passenger details.

6. Migrant workers are willing to pay higher fares to travel in reserved sleeper coaches. However, in recent years, Indian Railways has not introduced any new daily trains from Southern Railway to the eastern region. KKDRUA suggest that railway authorities avoid focusing solely on migrant workers traveling on a limited number of trains. Operating only a few trains leads to overcrowding and other issues. Instead, distributing passengers across a greater variety of trains would help reduce these problems. Therefore, the introduction of additional daily trains from Southern Railway to the eastern region to meet this demand—

  • Extension of 12663/12664 Howrah – Tiruchchirappalli bi-weekly express to Kanniyakumari and convert daily train service.
  • We request short terminate 12659/12660 Nagercoil–Shalimar at Thiruvananthapuram and operate 22641/22642 Thiruvananthapuram- Shalimar daily train service.
  • Increase the frequency of 22825/22826 Chennai – Shalimar weekly to daily.
  • Increase the frequency of 22877/22878 Ernakulam – Howrah Antyodaya weekly to daily.
  • 22842/22841 Tambaram – Santragachi Antyodaya weekly to daily and extension upto Nagercoil.
  • Increase the frequency of 12515/12516 Coimbatore-Silchar weekly to daily.

7. Most of the migrant workers depend on 22503 / 22504 Kanyakumari – Dibrugarh Express because of this train only running daily service to the Northeast region. So that introduce every terminal more daily train services to eastern and northeast region like—

  • Tiruvanantapuram–Shalimar daily
  • Tiruvanantapuram–Silchar daily
  • Ernakulam – Shalimar daily
  • Ernakulam – Dibrugarh
  • Coimbatore – Silchar daily
  • Coimbatore – Howrah daily
  • Chennai – Dibrugarh daily
  • Madurai – Howrah daily
  • Kanyakumari – Howrah daily
  • Tiruchchirappalli – Silchar daily etc.

8. Convert 22503/22504 Kanyakumari-Dibrugarh Express as a fully unreserved Antyodaya Express to eliminate reservation-related conflicts. If successful, extend this model to other southbound trains to the eastern region to ensure hassle-free travel for all passengers. Also terminated this train at Tiruvanantapuram North.

9. Conduct a thorough audit of fine receipts issued by TTEs across all Southern Railway divisions for the past five years to quantify the revenue loss caused by issuing short-distance fines for long-distance travel in reserved coaches.

10. Strict departmental action against Divisional Commercial Officers and TTEs involved in these malpractices to restore accountability and transparency.

The current practices of Southern Railway’s commercial officers and TTE squads are causing significant financial loss to the railways and immense inconvenience to reserved passengers. KKDRUA urge the authorities to take immediate action to address these issues and restore trust in the railway system. Failure to act will further passenger confidence and exacerbate revenue losses.