‘RPF personnel misuse travel allowances’
Mumbai, October 14 The Railways incurs an annual estimated loss of over Rs 65 lakh due to the Railway Police Force (RPF) personnel misusing travel allowance ...

Mumbai, October 14 The Railways incurs an annual estimated loss of over Rs 65 lakh due to the Railway Police Force (RPF) personnel misusing travel allowance money allotted to them. The RPF staff are given privilege passes and allowances to travel from their residence to the office by local trains, but they have found that their khaki uniforms are good enough passes to travel unquestioned and take home that travel allowance instead.

Some officers use duty passes while others use identity cards to save them from penalty. “Women constables of RPF and home guards, who are not eligible for first class travelling passes, travel in first class compartments anyway. We can’t stop them as they are powerful,” said a ticket checker (TC) at Dadar station (WR).

According to Railway sources only 16 out of the 1,350 RPF staff at Western Railways (Mumbai division and headquarters) have residential cards, while at Central Railways (Mumbai division and headquarters) 490 out of 1850 RPF personnel have the cards.

According to the Fifth Pay Commission, transport allowance is given to employees of railways to compensate for costs incurred by them on account of commuting between their residence and place of duty.

Travel allowances are assigned to the RPF employees depending on the salary bracket to which they belong — below Rs 6500-10500 salary bracket get Rs 100 per month in A-1 cities and Rs 75 in other places. Employees drawing between Rs 6,500-10,500 receive Rs 400 and those drawing between Rs 8000-13500 above get Rs 800.

Around 1,300 WR officers receive a total travel allowance of Rs 2,66,800 per month — which amounts to over Rs 32,016,00 annually. At CR this figure comes Rs 2,72,000 per month and Rs 32,64,000 annually.

There are several cases of misutilisation of privilege passes by RPF personnel. Last year a woman was caught by CR vigilance for using the privilege pass of a constable. She turned out to be his sister and was using the pass to avoid having to spend on a ticket. Since last year there have also been two cases of privilege pass booklet thefts.

“Other than RPF personnel, some WR employees also travel without tickets. Most of the railway workshop employees travel first class though they don't possess any pass or ticket for the same. As they are employees of the railways, we are unable to stop them,” said the TC.

But a senior official on condition of anonymity said, “We can not force them to take transport cards. They can tell us that they are not coming by train, but travel using their own vehicle or by bus. Also, staff members are given duty passes, which they also use for travelling to their residence.”

When Newsline contacted Devendranath Kasar, senior divisional security commissioner (WR), he refused to comment.

BS Sidhu, chief security commissioner (CR) said, “The misuse of passes by all sections of people is a common problem. When such a case comes up, it is inquired into and dealt with by the department concerned. Offenders are liable to serious punishments.”