“Don’t cancel train tickets, you will get refund”- Says IRCTC
Indian Rail Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), through its micro blogging platform has appealed the rail passengers not to cancel their tickets online for the trains canceled by the transport giant to control the spread of coronavirus. IRCTC spokes person Siddharth Singh said “Doubts have been raised regarding cancellation of e-tickets.”No cancellation required on the part of user. If user cancels his ticket, there are chances he may get less refund. Hence, passengers are advised not to cancel e- tickets on their own for those trains which have been cancelled by railways”.
The national transport giant has canceled all the trains till 31st March in view of the deadly Coronavirus outbreak. The pandemic has not only affected China, but has spread its tentacles worldwide. As a result, Indian Railways, in the first phase, had sanitized its trains and decided not to provide blankets during travel. But with the situation getting worse day by day, it announced a complete lockdown of its services for the passengers. This has resulted into a mass cancelation of tickets specially the e-tickets valid for a journey. The National lockdown of 21 days which was announced yesterday by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has extended the suspension of Railway services in India till the next notice. He appealed the citizens to stay at home during these 21 days so that India can fight with the monster chasing lives around India.
The announcement of railways-being non-functional for passengers has made ticket cancelation rates soaring higher day by day. Every passenger with a booked ticket are reaching to PRS counters for cancelation of tickets or logging in to IRCTC official ticket booking website to cancel their tickets. Keeping in mind, the cancelation of tickets; earlier, the railways had extended to three months the time to cancel counter tickets till June 21st. But today IRCTC on it’s twitter account has conspicuously addressed the passengers not to cancel their ticket online or not to make any online effort to cancel their tickets.
Less Refund by IRCTC:
It is clearly stated that, if a passenger tries or make any effort to cancel his/her ticket online, the cancelation charges will be deducted and the balance amount will be credited in the users account. If this is the case, then passengers can get less refund from railways. The subsidiary also announced that to avoid the “Less Refund” system, the user should not make any effort to cancel their tickets.
Automatic Refund by the Railways:
For the tickets booked online, the IRCTC will initiate automatic refund which will be reflected in the account of the user. This automated refund will not have any deduction or extra charges. Passengers will be refunded the full amount they had paid at the time of booking their tickets.
IRCTC’s Statement on Refund:
“Refund amount will be credited to the user account used for booking of e-tickets automatically. No charges are deducted by the railways in case of train cancellation.”