There have been several drives to prevent their entry and repeated announcements, but men continue to use the women's only compartment of Delhi Metro.
Over 6,000 men have been penalised in the first five months of this year for unlawful entry into the reserved coaches. According to figures, the number of male passengers fined from June to December last year was 7,654.
Each offender is penalised Rs 250 and authorities have collected approximately Rs 17 lakh in fines this year.
"CISF has alpha teams to prevent male passengers entering into women's compartments. Each team, headed by a lady sub-inspector and three to four other women constables, is deployed on each line of Delhi Metro. Two of the busiest metro corridors — Yellow line (Jahangirpuri to Huda City Centre) and Blue line (Dwarka Sector 21 to Noida City Centre/Vaishali) have deployment of two alpha teams," said Udayan Banerjee, CISF Deputy Inspector General (Delhi Metro operations).
"These teams apprehend male passengers entering women's coaches illegally and hand over the offenders to Delhi Metro staff, who issue fines. These lady constables can also deboard male passengers if a complaint of misbehaviour is received on the helpline number," he added,
Officials, however, admitted that with cases of illegal entries still high, the teams require extra manpower. From October 2010, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) had reserved the first coach of every train exclusively for females.
However, nothing seems to have deterred some men from trying to share this space, particularly during rush hour.
Children up to the age of 12 years accompanied by women passengers can travel in the reserved coach. Earlier, following complaints from women regarding entry and misbehaviour of male passengers inside the ladies' coach, DMRC set up a 24x7 helpline (155370).