New local, old problem: Passenger caught for ticketless travelling on Mumbai's first AC suburban train

Mumbai: A passenger was on Monday caught for travelling without ticket in an air-conditioned (AC) suburban train, whose services started, a senior railway official said. A fine of Rs 435 was recovered from the passenger and the amount includes Rs 165 as fare, Rs 250 as penalty, Rs 10 as CGST and Rs 10 as SGST, he said. The passenger was nabbed while he was travelling in a Churchgate-bound train, the official added. [caption id=“attachment_4275151” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  An air-conditioned local train in Mumbai. Twitter/@WesternRly[/caption] In a Christmas gift to Mumbaikars, the country’s first AC suburban train commenced its services, thus realising the long-held dream of lakhs of commuters. The train, operated by the Western Railway (WR), began its journey at 10.32 a.m from Borivali station to Churchgate in South Mumbai. The WR this evening claimed that it received a “decent” response from the commuters. The WR in a statement said in total five trips of the day, total 446 tickets were booked and 579 passengers travelled. “We earned Rs 62,746 through the fares from these five trips,” it added. Meanwhile, railway activist Rajiv Singhal, who has been a member of Railway Users Consultative Committees in both Central Railway and WR, claimed that the train would be “a failure due to institutional flaws.” Another social activist Anil Galgali said he has written to Railway minister Piyush Goyal and urged him that first-class ticket holders be allowed to travel in AC local trains.