The Railway Board has released the Annual Performance Report for the calendar year 2019. The report has quite a few interesting snippets. RailPost brings you highlights of the report.
Touting
The RPF has made a huge seizure of tickets booked by touts and those using fake IDs. This was named Operation Thunder. A total of 363 persons have been arrested in 378 cases. Close to 40000 tickets have been seized – both from past journeys and those booked in advance. The value of these tickets is about Rs.7.7 crores, and the 4355 IDs used to book these tickets are blocked.
Outside of Operation Thunder also, large seizures have been made. A total of 4235 persons have been arrested under 3819 cases. More than 1.5 lakh tickets representing both past and future journeys have been seized, amounting to a total of around Rs.73 crores in value, with more than 17000 IDs blocked.
Lost Luggage
RPF have retrieved over 13000 pieces of luggage left behind by passengers, valued at approximately Rs.48 crores. The top performers in left luggage retrieval (by numbers) are Southern Railway with 2423 retrievals valued at Rs2.98 crores; South Central Railway with 1704 retrievals valued at Rs.3.35 crores; and Western Railway with 1386 retrievals valued at Rs. 3.14 crores.
Life-Saving
RPF have been at the forefront of saving human lives from impending accidents like runovers, falling between the platform and the moving train, etc.
An outstanding example is the ultimate sacrifice of Jagbir Singh Rana, Constable in the Delhi Division of NR. HE lost his life saving a woman and three children coming under the wheels of a train when posted between Adarsh Nagar and Azadpur. In Western Railway, RPJ Jawan Shiv Charan Gurjar saved 9 people trapped in floods.
Following these shining examples, the force has saved a total of 495 lives across the country.
Child Rescue
RPF have also rescued children from various dangers and handed them over to their near and dear or to child care centres. Most importantly, 446 children have been saved from child traffickers and 68 arrests made. Apart from this, over 16000 children have been rescued – these cover runaway kids, destitute, kidnapped, left behind, missing, mentally ill, etc.
Seizure under NDPS Act
RPF were empowered only in April 2019 to make seizures and arrests under the Narcotics, Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. For the April to December period, RPF have arrested 427 traffickers under 490 cases while seizing drugs worth about Rs.13 crore in the market.
Other Highlights of 2019
| Illegal wildlife trade | 39 cases | Rs, 53 lakhs seizure value | 36 cases |
| Alarm Chain Pulling 46223 trains | 55373 incidents | 45784 persons arrested | 43951 persons prosecuted |
| Anti-encroachment | 1102 drives | 4937 locations freed from encroachment | |
| Coal theft | 247 cases registered; 246 detected | Rs.23 lakhs approximately stolen; Rs.10 lakhs approximately recovered | 444 persons arrested |
| Petroleum theft | 14 cases registered; 12 detected | Rs.6 lakhs approximately stolen; Rs.4 lakhs approximately recovered | 56 persons arrested |
| Booked Consignment and Railway Material | 3756 cases registered; 3085 detected | Rs.11.2 crores approximately stolen; Rs.4.50 crores approximately recovered | 5276 persons arrested |
| IPC Cases Detection | Detected | Arrested | |
| Drugging | 70 | 74 | |
| Luggage lifting | 2335 | 2639 | |
| Illegal arms | 95 | 104 | |
| Chain snatching / pick pocketing | 1210 | 1366 | |
| Offences against women | 94 | 94 | |
| Other offences | 1226 | 1625 |
RPF Helpline
Toll-Free number 182 has handled more than 60000 complaints during the year, besides handling about 32000 complaints received via Twitter.
Ticket Checking
As far as ticket checking drives are concerned, RPF have conducted or assisted in over 1.5 lakh drives, deploying about 1.20 lakh personnel. More than 5 lakh offenders have been booked and an amount of approximately Rs.215.65 crores realized as fare and penalty.
Stone Pelting
A total of 1138 cases of stone-pelting have been reported with 659 cases registered and 404 persons arrested.
Women’s Security
Special drives launched for women’s security included drives to prevent men travelling in women’s compartments. About 6000 cases have been registered, with about 7000 persons arrested and about Rs,7 lakh realized in penalty.
Divyaang Security
A total of 4788 cases have been registered against 5674 persons travelling in Divyaang coaches. About Rs.5 lakhs has been collected as a penalty.
Operation Thirst – conducted in July 2019 when 1430 persons were apprehended for sale of unauthorized packaged drinking water and 69000 bottles of water were recovered.
Operation Number Plate – conducted August where 69 vehicles involved in crime were recovered from railway parking lots and handed over to Police.
Operation Hunt detected unauthorized goods and persons travelling in Rajdhani Expresses.
Operation Box detected leaseholders of SLR transporting illegal goods. Totally 898 SLRs were checked and contraband worth approximately Rs.90 lakhs was seized. A penalty of Rs. 2.68 lakhs was also levied.
Group A cadre in RPF is named as Indian Railway Protection Force Service. The nomenclature of Group ‘A’ gazetted cadre of RPF as IRPFS does not, in any way, change the name of the force (RPF). The character of the force constituted under RPF (Amendment) Act 1985 (an Act of Parliament) as a statutory Armed Force of the Union remains unchanged.
