Mar 16 2017 : The Times of India (Chennai)

32 foreign tourists travelling as `sr citizens' in Shatabdi fined

Arvind Chauhan

Agra:





In what could arguably be the first such instance of its kind, railway officials caught 32 foreign tourists allegedly travelling on senior citizens' concessional tickets on the New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express. The facility is available only to Indian citizens.

In a special drive on Tuesday and Wednesday , a joint team of travelling ticket examiners Virender Singh and Manoj Nigam, and train superintendent S K Guntey found and challaned the tourists, charging them a total of `65,670 for using the concessional tickets while travelling between Agra and Jhansi.

Speaking to TOI, divisional commercial manager of Jhansi, Girish Kanchan said, “The onboard team of New Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express caught 18 passengers on Tuesday who were traveling from Habibganj to Agra in chair coaches 3 and 4, while on Wednesday 14 passengers who boarded the train from Agra to Jhansi on the chair and executive coaches were fined.“ “The passengers were cooperative, after the officials explained the rules of the railways to them. It appears they were duped by their local tour operator and agents. The tourists readily agreed to pay the fines,“ Kanchan said.

“A probe has been initiated against the tour operator and agents who booked their tickets,“ he said. The nationalities of the passengers has been withheld for the time being while investigations into the matter are being conducted.Officials said that the role of railway staff in helping the tour operators get such concessional tickets is also being probed.

According to the railways, concessional tickets for foreign and NRI senior citizen passengers were revoked from September 29, 2016.

On condition of anonymity, a railway official said, “The foreign passengers who were fined were part of two different groups who were been handled by local tour operators and agents. In the initial investigation we found that they had been misinformed and had been charged hefty commissions for each ticket which was invalid.“

“Most of the foreigners who take help of local agents and tour operators are not aware of new railway rules.For the last several months, we had been noticing that tour operators were duping both railways and foreign tourists. In one such case we found that the actual cost of the ticket for a foreign national had been charged from the passenger, and the amount had been printed on the e-ticket, but in the railway record, it was shown that the passenger had opted for a concessional ticket, something for which he was not eligible. These are issues to be investigated. The special drive might help create awareness among the passengers,“ the official added.