The railways have decided to follow in the footsteps of the airlines.
In a first, starting in the middle of next month, all air condition class travelers travelling on all classes of trains will have to compulsorily produce an ID proof.
The railway warns, the entire fare will be extracted from the passenger. Sources said that all travelling ticket examiners will be asked to note down the proof and is aimed at stopping the touts and the TTEs from carrying out an unholy nexus at stations and siphoning off tickets. So far, carrying ID proof was required only for passengers travelling with e-tickets or with tatkal tickets.
AC coach travelling has seen an explosion in the past one decade and tickets are booked months before the actual date of travel.
The decision will come into effect from February 15 in all trains across the country, said a Railway Ministry official.
The official said any one passenger in a group will be required to carry the ID proof. The ID proof could be a voter ID, pancard, passport, driving license issued by RTO, nationalised bank passbook with photo, credit card issued by banks with laminated photos, student ID card with photo or Aadhaar, the official said.
The decision comes days after IRCTC had listed the same IDs as proof that has to be carried after passengers book tickets on their mobile phones.
The decision comes in the backdrop of increasing cases of misuse of tickets like transfer of tickets, black marketing of tickets and growing involvement of touts. According to the agencies, during 2008-09, 20,240 cases of ticket transfer were reported and 2521 were apprehended. In 2010-11 63,854 such cases were detected and 2480 people were apprehended, the official said. Centre for Railway Information Systems has been asked to make necessary changes in the software so as to incorporate the message in the rail tickets for the benefit of the passengers.
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