RPF conducts drive against touts under Operation Upalabdh
With the restoration of long distance train services and festive season coming up there would be a summer rush in demand of reserved train tickets.
Taking note of it, Railway Protection Force (RPF) has stepped up its efforts and launched a drive called Operation Upalabdh against activities of touts throughout the country in the month of March specially.
The field units of RPF gathered inputs from the field, digital and cyber world, collated, verified and analysed information and started the drive across the nation from March 1, 2022.
The drive was immensely successful and resulted in arrest of 1459 touts, out of which 341 were authorised IRCTC agents but also indulged in touting of railway tickets. The process of blacklisting these IRCTC agents and blocking as many as 366 IRCTC agent IDs and 6751 personal Ids was also undertaken.
The arrest of touts is about 3.64 times the figure of the previous month. The tickets of future journey of value more than Rs 65 lakhs cornered by these touts illegally were recovered and thus making these seats available to the bonafide passengers.
The month long drive under Operation Upalabdh has been able to curb the activities of touts substantially and has made railway tickets available to the common man.
Indian Railways has advised the common public not to procure tickets from unauthorised persons as it is not only likely to be forfeited once detected, but may also land the buyer in legal trouble.
Operation Upalabdh by RPF against touts of railway tickets will continue with same intensity in future too.