Commuters forgot 43 lakh in cash, 283 mobiles in Delhi Metro

A whopping Rs 43 lakh in cash, 283 mobile phones and 79 laptops were among the belongings left behind by commuters while travelling in the Delhi Metro till August this year, according to the rail network’s ‘lost and found’ data.

The recovery of cash forgotten and later restored to the traveller, as per data accessed by PTI, is one of the largest in the last few years. For the entirety of last year, the corresponding figure was only over Rs 18.80 lakh.

As per data prepared by CISF, the security force tasked to secure the Metro network, a total of Rs 43,18,155 in forgotten cash was recovered by its personnel apart from foreign currency worth over Rs 26,000 and bank cheques/drafts worth over Rs 40.85 lakh.

Besides that, 79 laptops, 23 pieces of gold ornaments, 283 laptops, 63 watches, nine cameras and as many tablet phones were recovered from the Delhi Metro from January to August this year.

“These are cases of lost and and found in the Delhi Metro. Such cases occur at some station or the other almost every day. The Central Industrial Security Force is tasked with the security duties in the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and after recovering these items and scanning them from the point of view threats, the force hands them over to the station controller.

“In most cases, the person who forgets his belonging comes back and the cash and other stuff is handed back to the bonafide owner after due verification,” a senior official said. The comparative figures for last year’s recoveries of foreign currency and bank instruments stood at Rs 16,000 and Rs 1.93 lakh respectively.

During the 12-month period, 108 laptops, 26 pieces of ornaments, 37 cameras, 60 watches, 313 mobile phones, 14 tablet phones and half-a-dozen I-Pods were left and found at various Metro stations.

The Delhi Metro network has over 150 operational stations running across Delhi, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Faridabad. An estimated 26 lakh people use it to travel to their destination every day.