Indian Railway Introduces Link PNR System in Reservation Process

The world’s fourth largest railway network, the Indian Railways has recently taken a bold step for travelers and railway services improvisation. Hon’ble Railway Minister Mr. Piyush Goyal announced this update for the ease of Indian Railway passengers. A passenger-friendly service called as “Link PNR” service, especially for connecting journey, through which the passengers can claim their refund in case they miss any connecting train journey. The connecting train journey passengers are going to be beneficiary of this policy as it has paved the way for “easy-refund” in case of connecting train is missed.

What is Connecting PNR Process?
There are a lot of people who prefer to travel by connecting trains. If the first train gets delayed, and reaches the destination late than the scheduled arrival, the other train might pass away from the station leaving the passengers behind in the previous train. In such cases, passengers do not only suffer with the time and journey, but the refund process is complex and difficult. There are cases when passengers didn’t get their refund. The link PNR facility will help the passengers and railway staffs to combat with the refund issues. In such case, if one misses the train due to the delay in previous train, the money for remaining journey would be refunded to the passengers without any hassle.

How Link PNR would be beneficial for the Passengers

• First and foremost thing, you will get your refund back for the portion of journey canceled due to late arrival of the first train.
• Those passengers reserving tickets for the connecting journey will not have to bother about multiple ticket reservations. The passengers details would be displayed same in both PNR numbers.
• The Link PNR service would be applicable to all the classes of reservation.
• This policy will be applied to both kinds of ticket reservation process. Means the tickets reserved from PRS window or reserved via IRCTC website.
• No cancellation charges would be applied if the passenger cancels the ticket within 3 hours of actual train’s arrival of the first train.
• Only normal cancellation charges would be applied if the refund claim is made after 3 hours of actual arrival time of the previous or 1st train of connecting journey.
• The cancellation will be allowed only from the journey terminating station of the main train and the journey originating station of the second or connecting train.
• Passengers should keep checking their PNR status regularly, if the reservation shows a waitlist or RAC status, and arrive at station on time to board the train.

Refund Rules for Link PNR tickets

• The refund process is very easy and has been introduced in quick operational manner.
• If there is no counter available or in some other circumstances (Railways rules and functions) the TDR (Ticket Deposit Receipt) will be issued up to 3 days. The full refund would be granted after all the examinations done from the Chief Commercial Manager’s end or by the refund office.
• If the ticket is reserved by PRS window, the cancellation is to be claimed at any station of the country up to 3 hours of actual arrival of first train. The refund would be generated by the counter.
• Those tickets which have been booked by online portal of IRCTC, the TDR can be filled within 3 hours of the actual arrival of previous train at the interconnecting point (station). The full amount for the remaining journey ticket would be refunded. The reason “missing the connecting train due to late running of main train” has to be filled in TDR with all the information asked.

This move of the Indian Railway is going to be in force from 1st April 2019. As the IRCTC has to make some changes in their reservation software and then the policy will be soon included in the Indian Railways refund process policies.