The South Bengal State Transport Corporation – a statebacked passenger transport company – has lodged an FIR against the huge pilferage of revenue worth several crores of rupees earned from the sale of e-tickets by a company it had engaged as its principal booking agent operating from Durgapur for six Bengal districts since October, 2014 on an yearly renewal agreement.
According to the complaint lodged by Mayuri Vasu, MD, SBSTC: “The company siphoned off revenue worth Rs 7.19 crore by misusing the password through dishonest means and distributed excess tickets to its sub-agents, which were sold to commuters but the sale proceed wasn’t deposited in the account of SBSTC.”
During the LF regime, in its 110th Board Meeting on 8 April, 2004, the state-owned transport major had decided to outsource the job of ticket booking with an aim to bring the booking to the doorstep of the commuters. In 2013, SBSTC introduced e-ticketing system and the modalities of online ticket booking system were developed through state’s Webel Technologies (WRL). In 2015, SBSTC introduced Integrated Traffic Management System following which the passwords of the ticket selling web platform was handed over to the private company.
The Chief Accounts Officer, SBSTC, in December, 2020, first detected gross anomalies in ticket selling throughout the selling points in the districts of West Burdwan, Bankura, Murshidabad, Purulia, Howrah and even in Kolkata those were controlled by the Durgapur-based private company.
The Chief Accounts Officer, on 31 March, 2021, in his report detected a negative balance worth Rs 7.56 crore in his report and the matter was moved for an external audit. In October, the auditor estimated the looted sum as Rs 7.19 crore.
After scrutiny, the Directorate of Anti Corruption Branch of the state government decided to lodge a police complaint against the private player bringing charges of criminal breach of trust and criminal conspiracy (Sections – 409 & 120-B of the IPC). Subsequently, the SBSTC lodged an FIR on 23 November last year and the police began investigations on 24 November. However, none of the company officials, as per the police, could either be quizzed or arrested as yet