India’s Most Stolen Train Souvenir? 1.27 Crore Bedroll Items Vanish From AC Coaches

Turns out India's favourite souvenir from a train journey is not a memory but a pillowcase. An RTI investigation by The Indian Express , sourced from 54 of Indian Railways' 69 divisions across 16 of its 18 zones, found that 1.27 crore bedroll items vanished from AC coaches between January 2022 and May 2026, costing an estimated Rs 104.51 crore, a figure likely conservative since nine divisions withheld cost data entirely.

Every night, Indian Railways serves around eight lakh AC passengers with a bedroll kit, and roughly one in every 1,000 walks off with a piece of it. Face towels lead the heist with 46.54 lakh missing, followed by 41.13 lakh bedsheets, 23.59 lakh pillow covers, 12.95 lakh blankets and 2.76 lakh pillows, the last two presumably too bulky to smuggle out casually. Ten divisions across seven zones account for 67 percent of the total, with Bikaner topping the list at 25.76 lakh items, its theft count quadrupling from 2.99 lakh to 12.34 lakh since bedrolls resumed post pandemic. Delhi, refreshingly, cut its theft rate by 79 percent in the same window, proof that shame is not entirely dead.

This is not exactly a new national pastime either. A viral 2025 video showed a family in the first AC compartment of the Purushottam Express caught mid theft, a fitting mascot for a country where chained mugs in train toilets are already standard procedure.

The real sting is financial. Under a Railway Board circular, missing items are billed to contractors at full purchase price if within half their service life, 50 percent beyond that, or 75 percent if undetermined, and contractors pass the hit straight to attendants, some of whom report monthly salary deductions running into several thousand rupees. Recovery rates for specific items include Rs 343 for a blanket and Rs 198 for a bedsheet. Railways officials called linen theft a serious concern while insisting there is no conclusive evidence of staff collusion, even as one Solapur contractor abandoned a three year contract in just 14 months.

Countermeasures on paper include CCTV, the Coach Mitra tracking app, attendant counselling, police verification and reprinted return instructions on linen packets, none of which appear to have dented the enthusiasm of India's most committed bedsheet collectors.