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Rly. Protection Force vested with more powers

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, JULY 1. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) was today vested with the powers of the police to deal with petty crimes on trains and in the railway premises as part of the exercises to make rail travel safer.

According to an official announcement, the Ministry of Railways has issued the necessary gazette notification enforcing the Railway Protection Force (Amendment) Act, 2003 and the Railways (2nd Amendment) Act, 2003 from today.

They confer upon the RPF the power of the police to arrest, investigate and prosecute those indulging in 29 petty offences.

However, offences such as sabotage, maliciously wrecking or attempting to wreck a train, damage to or destruction of railway property, hurting or attempting to hurt people travelling by rail and other major law and order problems on trains and in the railway premises continue to remain under the Government Railway Police (GRP), which is an arm of the State Police concerned.

The RPF now has exclusive powers to arrest and prosecute offenders under 29 offences of the Railway Act, 1989. The duties of the RPF will include escorting the passenger trains and access control of passenger areas at railway platforms, reservation offices, circulating areas, obstruction in the duties of the railway servants, endangering the safety of the travellers, disobedience by the drivers and the conductors of vehicles, carrying offensive goods, and obstruction to the train movement.

To begin with, 1000 pairs of mails and express trainsare being escorted by the RPF and some others by the GRP.

While the areas of work of the two forces have been segregated, their jobs will be complementary to each other.A coordinating mechanism has been set in motion for an integrated approach to tackle crimes.

The penalty for ticket-less travel has gone up from Rs. 50 to Rs. 250.

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