MTC scam? Tickets sold, but Rs 19 lakh missing

CHENNAI: Disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against three Metropolitan

Transport Corporation

(MTC) employees in

Tambaram

and Vallalar Nagar for swindling money collected through the sale of concession tickets.

Documents accessed by TOI suggest that

V Anandraj

in Tambaram and

J Mohana

in Vallalar Nagar sold nearly 7,400 concession tickets worth Rs 19.04 lakh to passengers in February 2016 but did not record the sale. Supervisor

Shanthi

of Tambaram is also in the dock for not verifying the accounts related to the sale done by Anandraj.

A larger investigation is expected as similar allegations have cropped up in depots across the city, say MTC sources.

MTC offers concessions under different categories: Travel As You Please Ticket (TAYPT), Monthly Season Ticket (MST), Students Concession Ticket (SCT), Differently Abled and Others. On an average, a depot earns nearly ?50-60 lakhs through sale of MSTs, SCTs and TAYPTs.

Commuters can purchase these passes at any of the 34 designated depots or counters across the city.

Passes issued with no details printed on them

Ticket sellers at these counters are to enter the name and other details of applicants in the passes. A ticket examiner on the Tambaram-Mudichur route during a routine inspection found that many such passes were issued with no details printedon them. Growing suspicious, other MTC staff filed a complaint with the corporation headquarters at Pallavan House.

An internal inquiry revealed V Anandraj, ticketseller at Tambaram depot, recorded half the number of concession passessoldto public.

Though hesubmittedbillsclaiming that the other half remained unsold, the investigating team found out that Anandraj had sold it without entering names and defrauded the amount collectedthrough it, said V Thalapathi from Nethaji Transport Workers Association, who brought the scam to light through theRighttoInformation (RTI) Act.

“His higher-ups, who were also hand in glove with him, did not crosscheck any of his bills. Indeed they shared their credentials for accessing the internal server in which they should approve these claims,” he told TOI. Disciplinary proceedings have been initiated against Anandraj and Shanthi.

Another set of documents show similar action has been taken against Mohana, a ticket seller at Vallalar Nagar (Mint). “This makes is evident that nearly 40% of MTC revenue through sale of such concession fares were swindled by ticket sellers and their immediate bosses,” said another MTC staff.