Mumbai: Central Railway hikes platform ticket price at these stations. Check details here

The Central Railway zone of the Indian Railways has decided to hike the price of platform tickets from Monday at select railway stations in the city of Mumbai to curb the menace of Alarm Chain Pulling(ACP) in trains by passengers while travelling.

In order to control the crowd and curb misuse of ACP cases on trains at the platform in the summer season, the Central Railway zone decided to hike the price of platform tickets as a temporary measure from Rs.10 to Rs. 50. The hike in the price of platform tickets will be seen only at selected central railway stations in Mumbai and that too for a limited time period of 15 days with effect from 9 May till 23 May. These selected railway stations where the platform tickets will be sold at the price of Rs. 50 are Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Dadar Central, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Thane, Kalyan and Panvel railway stations, according to a statement from the Central Railway zone.

Effort to curb misuse of ACP

The Chief Public Relations officer of Central Railway stated that passengers are increasingly using ACP for frivolous reasons such as arriving late, alighting/boarding at intermediate stops, and so on. Such irrational ACP occurrences are being closely monitored by Central Railway. The criminals have usually apprehended quickly thanks to the awareness of RPF, Ticket Checking Personnel, and complaints/cooperation of other railway staff and passengers, however, cases are occasionally filed against unknown individuals.

"A total of 332 cases of Alarm Chain Pulling have been reported on Mumbai division for the period 1 April to 30 April. Out of these 53 cases have been registered as justified due to valid reasons, whereas 279 cases have been registered as unreasonable. A total of 188 offenders have been prosecuted under section 141 of the Indian Railway Act for pulling of alarm chain without sufficient or valid reason and an amount of Rs.94,000/- has been realized as a penalty," read a statement from Central Railway.

Notably, the alarm chain when pulled without sufficient reason or emergency not only affects the running of that particular train but also has a cascading effect on the trains that run behind it. In a suburban system like Mumbai Division, this results in the late running of Mail / Express and suburban trains affecting their punctuality. Further, the misuse of ACP for the convenience of one or few passengers ends up causing inconvenience to all other passengers.