Gujarat travel agency booked for tampering with entry tickets of 'Statue of Unity' to overcharge tourists

Police have registered an FIR against a Surat-based travel agency for allegedly tampering with the entry tickets of 23 tourists visiting the Statue of Unity’ located at Kevadia in Gujarat’s Narmada district in order to overcharge them, officials said on Saturday.

The fraud came to light on Friday after the staff deployed at the entry gate of the Statue of Unity, the world’s tallest statue that is dedicated to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, thoroughly checked the tickets of the tourists, police said.

A Kevadia police station official said that the travel agency had edited the tickets of 19 adult visitors by showing the printed price of each ticket to be higher by Rs 50. Similarly, the prices on the tickets of four children were raised by Rs 20 each.

“The ticket of an adult tourist was shown to cost Rs 430 even as the actual price is Rs 380, while that of a child was raised to Rs 250 when its official price is Rs 230. The agency tampered with the original documents and used them for entry to the Statue of Unity premises,” he said.

The staff at the entry gate found that the prices of as many as 23 tickets – 19 for adults and four for children – were edited on computer to show the rates higher than what they actually are, an official of the Statue of Unity Tourism Authority said. “During the scrutiny, it was found that the price of each ticket for an adult was raised by Rs 50 to Rs 430, and that of a child by Rs 20 to Rs 250 through editing,” the official said.

It was found that this was allegedly done by My Value Trip travel agency, he said. Deputy mamlatdar Satish Prajapati lodged a complaint against the agency, on the basis of which an FIR was registered at Kevadia police station on Friday night, the official said.

The case was registered against the travel agency under IPC sections 465 (forgery) and 471 (fraudulently or dishonestly using as genuine any document or electronic record), as well as under section 60-D of the Information Technology Act for cheating by personation using computer resource, the police official said.