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Indian Railways' Central Railway zone has decided to increase the price of platform tickets from today at some of the railway station in the city of Mumbai to curb the menace of alarm chain pulling(ACP) in the trains by the passengers while travelling.
The railways have decided that in order to control thecrowd and curb misuse of ACP cases on trains at the platform in the summer season, it is proposed the price of platform tickets be hiked as a temporary measure from Rs.10/- to Rs. 50/- at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, Dadar, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Thane, Kalyan and Panvel stations for 15 days with effect from 9 May till 23 May for a period of 15 days.
Railways further said that of late it is seen that passengers are resorting to ACP for frivolous reasons like arriving late, alighting/boarding at intermediate stations etc. Central Railway is keeping a close tab on such unreasonable ACP incidents. In most of the cases the offender is immediately nabbed due to the alertness of RPF, Ticket Checking Personnel and complaints / co-operation of other railway staff and passengers, but sometimes cases are registered against unknown persons also.
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/- have been realized as penalty.
When the Alarm Chain of a suburban train is pulled, it causes a small lever to be displaced in the respective coach along with sending an alert bell to the Motorman and Guard of the train. The train has to be stopped and the displaced lever has to be put right for the train to move. When the Alarm Chain of a mail /express train is pulled, it activates the Passenger Alarm Signal Device(PASD) causing release of air pressure in the respective coach which automatically stops the train. This has to be attended to and put right by the Guard or TTE or any such railway staff nominated for the purpose for the train to move.
Hence 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 late running of Mail / Express and suburban trains affecting its punctuality. Further the misuse of ACP for the convenience of one or few passengers ends up causing inconvenience to all other passengers.
