Indian Railways to provide massage service on board running trains
New Delhi, Jun 8: For the first time in the history of Indian Railways, massage services will be made available for passengers on board running trains.
This facility will be made available in 39 trains departing from Indore. These include Dehradun-Indore Express (14317), New Delhi-Indore Intercity Express (12416) and Indore-Amritsar Express (19325), a railway official said Saturday.
This was a proposal from the Ratlam division of Western Railway zone, the official said.
"This is the first time in history of railways that we will provide massaging service for passenger comfort on running trains. It will not only increase revenue but also add passengers. Railways to earn an additional revenue of Rs 20 lakh annually and an estimated increase of Rs 90 lakh per year through additional sale of tickets from about 20,000 passenger who will be the service providers.
"This is the first time that such a contract has been signed," said Rajesh Bajpai, director, media and communication, railway board.
The service is likely to commence in 15-20 days and will be available from 6 am to 10 pm. Rs 100 each will be charged for head massage and foot massage.
Three to five massage providers will travel on each train. The railways will provide them identity cards.
This scheme is part of the railways' scheme whereby zones and divisions have been asked to come out with new and innovative ideas to generate non-fare revenue for the national transporter.
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Traffic fraud: Fake 'no-entry' sticker racket busted in Delhi, mastermind among 3 held
New Delhi (PTI): Police here have busted a crime syndicate involved in traffic fraud and extortion, arresting three people including the alleged mastermind who sold fake stickers to help commercial vehicles bypass no-entry restrictions, an official said on Saturday.
The police said they dismantled a third organised syndicate linked to traffic-related frauds, with the arrest of Rinku Rana alias Bhushan, his associate Sonu Sharma and Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, who was also connected to another extortion syndicate.
According to the police, Rinku Rana was running a well-organised network that facilitated the movement of commercial goods vehicles during restricted hours by selling fake 'marka' or stickers for Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000 per vehicle every month. The stickers were falsely projected as authorisation to evade traffic challans.
During raids, the police recovered Rs 31 lakh in cash, property documents worth several crores of rupees, over 500 fake stickers and six mobile phones allegedly used to operate the syndicate.
The crackdown followed a complaint filed by a traffic police officer in April this year after a commercial vehicle tried to evade checking by producing a fake sticker claiming exemption from enforcement action.
Investigation revealed that social media groups were being used to coordinate the illegal movement of vehicles and alert drivers about traffic police checkpoints, police said.
"A parallel system was being run to cheat drivers and vehicle owners while undermining traffic enforcement. On the basis of evidence, provisions related to organised crime under the BNS were invoked," a senior police officer said.
Sonu Sharma, the police said, managed social media groups through which stickers were sold and real-time alerts were circulated regarding traffic police movement. He also acted as a link between Rana and drivers operating in the field.
In a related development, Mukesh Kumar alias Pakodi, an associate of Rajkumar alias Raju Meena, who was earlier arrested under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA), was also apprehended.
Mukesh allegedly helped extort money from transporters and was involved in blackmailing traffic police personnel by recording enforcement actions, the police said.
Investigators alleged the syndicate led by Rajkumar deployed drivers to deliberately violate traffic rules and secretly record police officials during challans, later using manipulated videos to extort money under threat of false allegations.
The police said that in total, eight accused belonging to three different organised crime syndicates linked to traffic frauds and extortion have been arrested so far.
Further investigation is underway to trace the remaining members, conduct financial probes, and analyse digital evidence recovered during the raids, officials added.
