Pakistan Railways authorities have directed the railways police not to take action against ticketless passengers as this falls in the domain of special ticket examiners, The Express Tribune has learnt.
Checking of ticketless passengers by police officials was creating confusion among the STEs and causing loss to the national kitty, a senior official requesting anonymity said.
The official said the job of police officials deployed on trains and at railway stations was to maintain security and help rail officials on demand in case of an emergency. He said they were not empowered to arrest ticketless passengers and recover fines. But, he said, police officials appeared to be arresting ticketless passengers just to establish an aura of authority.
The PR authorities had urged the RP inspector general to direct his subordinates not to cross their boundaries during duty on trains as it was earning a bad name for the organisation.
The commercial manual allows ticketless passengers to board a train and get tickets form the STEs as early as possible before leaving a station. An STE is empowered to impose extra fare on ticketless people that includes regular fare plus fare from the departure point of the train.
Now to avoid this practice, the PR authorities have reportedly decided to delete this section from the commercial manual. A proposal in this regard has been sent to the PR chairman for approval.
On approval of the proposal, the authorities would establish a compact reservations system and only passengers carrying tickets would be allowed entry at railway stations. The PR has been losing millions of rupees on account of ticketless travellers allegedly patronised by rail and police officials travelling on trains for operation and security. The PR Lahore division collects about Rs3.4 million per month in fines and fare from ticketless passengers.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 5th, 2013.