Indian Railways has introduced a new OTP based refund system for tickets booked through authorized railway ticketing agents. The objective behind this move is to bring in a transparent and customer-friendly refund system
for reserved e-tickets which are cancelled or which are fully waitlisted dropped tickets.
for reserved e-tickets which are cancelled or which are fully waitlisted dropped tickets.
According to the Ministry of Railways railways release, this new system will be implemented by Indian Railways' catering and e-ticketing arm, Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC). The OTP (One time Password) will be received as SMS on the registered mobile number of the passenger (provided by the customer/passenger to the agent at the time of booking).
The customer/passenger will be required to share the OTP with the agent who booked the ticket, in order to receive the refund amount. Through this user-friendly facility, passengers will now come to know about the exact refund amount received by agent on his behalf against cancelled ticket or fully waitlisted dropped ticket.
The objective of the scheme is to streamline the cancellation refund process further so that cancellation amount is refunded timely to the customer by the agents and their grievances regarding cancellation refund are solved.
According to IRCTC, the cancellation fee is charged per passenger and there won’t be any refund for the confirmed tatkal train tickets. Moreover, IRCTC doesn’t entertain any refund of fare on RAC e-tickets in case the ticket is not cancelled or TDR not filed online up to thirty minutes before the scheduled departure of the train.
In order to avail this facility, customers are advised:
1. To provide correct mobile number of one of the passengers to the IRCTC authorised agent at the time of booking reserved rail e-tickets.
2. To ensure that the agent records his or her mobile number correctly at the time of booking reserved rail e-tickets.
3. To note that only IRCTC authorised agents are permitted to book reserved rail e-tickets to the customer.
4 To note that OTP based refund for cancelled tickets or fully waitlisted dropped tickets, will be processed only if the ticket is booked through IRCTC authorised agents.
It is worth mentioning that IRCTC levies 25 per cent of the fare as the cancellation charge subject to a minimum amount fixed for every class if a confirmed ticket is cancelled within 48 hours and up to 12 hours before the scheduled departure of the train. The ticket cancellation fee escalates to 50 per cent of the fare if a confirmed ticket is cancelled less than 12 hours and up to four hours before the scheduled departure of the train.
