Taking another step towards facilitating the public to avoid crowding stations and practice social distancing in the wake of corona scare, Indian Railways has relaxed refund rules for tickets booked in advance.
In an advisory issued for all concerned, the state-run transporter has amended the existing rules enabling passengers to claim refund upto 45 days from date of the journey across counters instead of the current practice of three hours to 72 hours in case train is cancelled.
Not taking any chance in the time of the corona pandemic, Railways has changed refund rules to remain effective from March 21 to April 15, 2020.
The refund rules have been relaxed for passengers booked tickets at PRS (passenger reserve system) counters across the country while rules for the e-ticketing system remain the same as the passenger does not need to come to the station for a refund of the ticket.
However, if the train is not cancelled but the passenger does not want to travel then the TDR ( Ticket Deposit Receipt) can be filed within 30 days from the date of the journey at the station instead of the existing rule of 3 days now.
After getting the TDR, one has to submit the same for claiming a refund at the Chief Commercial Manager claim office within 10 days. Now the 10 days have been extended to 60 days giving sufficient time to passengers in the wake of COVID-19.
“TDR can be submitted to Chief Commercial Manager Claims office for getting the refund with 60 days of the filing of TDR subject to verification from train chart, instead of an extant rule of 10 days, according to the latest notification.
Passengers who want to cancel tickets through 139 can get refunds across the counter within 30 days from the date of the journey instead of the extant rule of upto the scheduled departure of the train. The refund relaxation will remain in force from March 21 to April 15, 2020, and after that, a decision would be taken after a review of the situation.