Behave, for the Metro is watching

If you have the habit of littering, squatting, playing loud music or travelling on undervalued tickets on the Metro, it’s about time you displayed better behaviour.

If you have the habit of littering, squatting, playing loud music or travelling on undervalued tickets on the Metro, it’s about time you displayed better behaviour.

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The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation has authorised station personnel to directly impose fines up to Rs 500. Earlier, the authority rested only with the metropolitan magistrate under whose jurisdiction the Metro came.

Huge number of cases of violation of rules has forced the corporation to authorise its station personnel to keep a stricter watch on violators.

Six months ago, it had deputed special inspection squads to carry out surprise checks at stations and on trains.

The squads checked over 16,000 cases of violations. Apart from violations like squatting, travelling on undervalued tokens and littering, commuters would also be fined for refusing reserved seats to ladies, senior citizens and the physically challenged.

However, they were mostly counseling offenders instead of imposing fines. In more serious cases, the offenders were handed over to the police or produced before the metropolitan magistrate. However, as there is only one magistrate who has jurisdiction for the entire Metro network, it hampered the quick imposition of fines, a corporation spokesman said.

“To deal with this problem, we have decided to grant power to one Metro personnel at each of the 62 stations under the Delhi Metro Railway (Operation & Maintenance) Act, 2002,” the spokesman said.

The station manager and, in his absence, the station controller, has been authorised to impose fines.

“Offenders will be issued receipts for fines collected and any person who refuses to pay the fine will be handed over to the police to be produced before the metropolitan magistrate,” he said.

“Littering is common on Metro premises and able-bodied people could be seen sitting on seats reserved for ladies and senior citizens,” a corporation official said.

“We are carrying around 8 lakh passengers every day but the problem has already reached mammoth levels. When our network expands, we expect 20 lakh passengers to use the system. At that time only punitive measures are not going to help,” he said.