NEW DELHI: The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has arrested 1,459 touts and blocked 366 IRCTC agent IDs and 6,751 personal IDs as part of a month-long pan-India drive against illegal ticketing, the Railways said on Saturday.
The drive, 'Operation Upalabdh', was conducted following the restoration of long-distance train services as the festival and summer rush was expected to bring about a sharp rise in the demand for reserved train seats, it said.
"Taking note of the input, the Railway Protection Force (RPF) geared up its efforts and launched a pan-India drive against activities of touts in the month of March 2022."
The field units of the RPF gathered inputs from the field, digital and the cyber world, collated, verified and analysed the information, and started the drive across the nation from March 1, 2022.
"The drive was immensely successful and resulted in the arrest of 1,459 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 6,751 personal IDs is being undertaken," a statement from the Railways said.
The number of arrests is about 3.64 times of the figure for the month of February, it said.
Tickets of future journeys worth more than Rs 65 lakh cornered by these touts illegally were recovered and blocked, thus making these seats available to bonafide passengers, the statement said.