Ahmedabad: An AMTS bus ticketing racket has come to light, prompting the transport body to form a four-member panel for a detailed investigation covering the entire service.
On Feb 26, an AMTS flying squad checked tickets on Route 66/3 and found that passengers on the same bus had tickets bearing different machine IDs.
Conductor Dinesh Rambhai Machhi was using three ticketing machine IDs, when normally, only one machine is issued to every conductor. It is suspected that Machhi may have managed to source malfunctioning machines and got them repaired. Probe revealed that Machhi used his ID and password on the machine he had been officially issued and other conductors’ credentials on the other two to embezzle fare money to the tune of Rs 1.25 lakh.
A case has been filed against him at the Kagdapith police station.
Officials said that this could be just the tip of the iceberg and that more conductors may be involved. The bus on which Machhi was found running his racket is operated by Arham Transportation.
The four-member probe panel is gathering reconciliation data from all machines to determine how many have been used in the racket. Sources said that of the 1,000 buses AMTS runs every day, 90% are run by private operators. While AMTS provides both machines and ticket boxes, conductors on these buses are employed by private operators.
Currently, AMTS has issued only 362 machines, while ticketing is manual on the remaining buses. The sources further added that sometimes, machines malfunction and do not send instant data because of which the fare collected by conductors is reconciled with data on the server at the end of each month. AMTS does not have information on how many of these machines are faulty and there is no system to tally daily cash flow.
The investigation committee will now reconcile collections with data from each machine to determine the extent of the embezzlement. The committee includes the deputy general manager (transport), chief accountant, director of traffic and a junior engineer.
Additionally, the company supplying the ticket machines has been ordered to conduct a technical review and provide data.