Cancellation of Waitlisted tickets
However, the situation is not known until the chart is prepared, which is barely 4 hours before departure. But by rule, the cancellation of the wait listed ticket is to be done 1/2 hour before departure, else entire amount is lost. Given that the railways decides to invalidate the ticket, should the passenger not be given an option to cancel and get a refund 1-2 days later? Everyone rushing to counter after chart preparation seems unreasonable.
We booked tickets 3 weeks in advance with waiting list 4,5 for onward journey and 2,3 for return journey. Pretty much told by everyone that they would be confirmed since 2AC would have lot of quotas which would be released on journey day.
But somehow for the onward journey only 1 got confirmed and other remained on waiting list. So we made alternate arrangements for one to travel by bus as it was an important trip for us. We could not think of going to the station to cancel as the bus departed much before the train and the distance between the two was more than 10 kms, needing us to travel about an hour each way. This is cumbersome when we are also making alternate plans for travel.
On the return journey, the status did not change at all, and it remained at waiting list # 2 and 3 even after chart is prepared. This is baffling to me that in 3 weeks not a single cancellation was done and no quota seats were released.
I would like to request the SCR GM to look into this. The train numbers in question were 12710 on 25th from Secunderabad and 12709 on 28th.
Also, request the railways to facilitate cancellation of wait listed tickets for up to 48 or 72 hours post departure. As such time limit is also not necessary as there is no impact on the travel of other passengers.
Request concerned authorities to look into these two issues. more