chennai scamsters at chennai central parcel office are intelligent enough to render technology meant to curb malpractice ineffective raids by the southern railway vigilance department have shown the raids were conducted in the wake of the parcel scam unearthed at the station a fortnight ago to curb overloading railways had installed a parcel management system pms with an electronic weighing system linked to a centralised computer that would generate a bill and a barcode containing details of the parcel like weight and its destination more than a year ago five handheld terminals in photo were provided to the parcel office to check barcodes before loading parcels on trains this was to ensure that the luggagecumparcel coach was not overloaded overloading can derail a coach however when vigilance sleuths raided the central parcel office for around 26 hours in two different operations from friday to sunday morning they found that the handheld terminals were not working sources in the parcel office saidluggage clerks complained that the terminals which run on gprs had connectivity issues a source said however when vigilance checked the terminals they were working correspondingly it was found that manual records were being maintained a raid was conducted at egmore station on monday as well said sourcesthe gadgets were not being used to facilitate overloading which was rampant sources said for instance a consignment with 70 pieces would be booked through pms which would generate a barcode slip however 30 to 40 extra parcels would be loaded manually onto the train as the handheld terminal would not be used to account for loadingthe vigilance found that on some parcels barcode stickers were not pasted a source said there have been cases where parcel staff have avoided sticking barcodes stating shortage of stationery sources saida fine of around rs 30000 was collected for undervalued parcels vigilance may also give chargememos to parcel clerks for this malpractice said sources vigilance sources pleaded anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the pressthe vigilance raid on friday passed off smoothly however on saturday the sleuths were accosted by men dressed in black and white who called themselves advocates usually vigilance sleuths conducting such raids are accompanied by railway protection force rpf personnel but they were not seen the rpf is incharge of weeding out outsiders from railway stations but a number of them were found loitering in the parcel office a source saidthe parcel scam in chennai central came to the light after 11 cartons of vests bound for howrah went missing a fortnight ago