Premium Tatkal ticket cancellation, improvement suggested

I would like to share my experience on cancellation of Premium Tatkal ticket and suggest some improvements also.
I had a premium tatkal (PT) ticket for travel from Bangalore to Chennai by Train No. 12658 leaving at 2240 on 4 May 2018. The train was rescheduled to 0500 hrs of 5/5, i.e. more than 6 hours delay. Wanted to find out what would be the refund amount if I cancel the ticket. I called enquiry office and shared the PNR (4657197633) and was informed by them that PT ticket has no refund in case of cancellation including that for train delay. I was not satisfied with this answer so called 2nd time and was given the same answer. Later from senior person also got the same answer. When I told him that on Google search I found that there is full refund if train is delayed by more than 3 hours from its origin station, he informed me that it must be through private website and cannot be believed.
I went through IRCTC site and could not find a straight forward answer. What I got under refund rule ( http://contents.irctc.co.in/en/Refundrule2015.pdf ) was a 21-page long Government of India Gazette notification No. G.S.R.836(E). Do they expect a common man to read and understand this? Need a lawyer to do it.
There is also another simpler version at http://contents.irctc.co.in/en/REFUND%20RULES%20wef%2012-Nov-15.pdf which is a 12 page document but unfortunately it does not talk about PT tickets.
There is yet one more document at http://contents.irctc.co.in/en/Scilent%20feature%20of%20pt%20quota.pdf which clearly mentions that “No refund is given to passengers in case of cancellation of confirm PT quota ticket.” However next sentence mentions “All rules for tatkal quota booking over internet is applicable to Premium Tatkal quota also.”
After evaluating all these I concluded that I should get 100% refund as the train was late by more than 3 hours from starting station. Based on telephonic enquiry I had decided not to cancel as it was not very convenient to cancel due to non-availability of facility but after my conclusion I thought of any way cancelling and see what refund I get. And to my surprise or as expected, I got full refund. But the question is, does Railways expect a common traveller to do all this? He would generally go by what he was told by inquiry office or what is available on website in simple language.
I am still wondering what was the intention of the enquiry office to misguide me? Was it to see that I do not cancel so that Railway do not lose this money? Or was it that they all are ignorant about it?
Suggestions:
1. Of course, improve the quality of enquiry staff.
2. PNR status check available in various official sites should also provide by default the refund amount in case of cancellation (irrespective of type of ticket) at that point of time in addition to all other info. Passenger then has a possibility to make an intelligent judgement in case he wants to cancel his ticket.
3. Improve on line cancellation procedure:
Present procedure: If you want to cancel a ticket, first you select a PNR in IRCTC site and press cancel button. You would then get in to another page where only the selected PNR ticket will be available. Here you confirm the cancellation. Once confirmed, ticket would be cancelled and then only you are informed about the refund amount.
Suggested improvement: Let the site display calculated refund amount before proceeding with cancellation. This way, the passenger can decide if he really wants to cancel or abandon the cancellation and continue with the ticket? This is important particularly for PT tickets which are so expensive (in my case normal fare 961, tatkal 1350 but PT 2850). more  

View all 46 comments Below 46 comments
Hope mantralaya takes action on this more  
Thanks Bihal , giving such a ease and simple way of processing . I feel there will be no mediocre and sharer of valued money ,what we are seeing in regular course of this time unable to find fare and time saving process hence all employees are also passenger too. Amazing why there's such a difficult and painful process. more  
Thank you Mr Bihani for taking all the pain to explain. It is really useful to many. Hope railways respond positively. more  
I appreciate the tremendous effort of Mr.Bihani. I believe Railways inspite of all the improvements is still lacking in the advance reservation method. Railways gets money into the account well in advance, 3 months and imagine the interest. Still when a ticket is cancelled deduction is applied, for unconfirmed tickets also. I would like to share my experience in Japan but no it is not worth for a comparison with Indian Railways more  
I have suffered a loss of almost Rs.6600/- around 4 years ago when a PT ticket booked by me for travel in 3AC from Mumbai to Bhopal for 2 adults by train Punjab Mail. The train was delayed by 5hrs 30mnts. Since chart was prepared, I filed a TDR online the IRCTC portal. After almost 2 weeks, the TDR was rejected. I visited the local IRCTC office at CSMT (known as CSTM as that time) and they were also surprised that no reason was given by the Northern Railways refunds office for rejection of the TDR. They asked me to file the TDR once again and the same was again reject without giving any reason. When I contacted the Northern Railways refund office by sending a friend of mine to enquire for the reason of rejection of my TDR, the commercial manager refunds told that there is no refund applicable on PT tickets even in case of train delayed for more than 3 hrs. This is complete cheating and I did not pursue the case as I had no clue whom to approach in this matter. The only lesson I learnt that the Indian railways is a white collared thief who is reluctant to refund my hard earned money on the context of wrong interpretation of it's own rules. They penalize the passengers in any which way they can on the context of Penalties for breaking their rules. But, who will penalize such railway officials for their arrogance and misdeeds???? more  
Post a Comment

Related Posts

    • Curbing Rail Worker Perks: A Balancing Act for the Nation

      Spurred by the meaningful responses from the learned members on the Topic ''Restoration of ravel concessions for seniors'' Some more inputs : The idea of curbing the perks enjoyed by ra...

      By Jayakumar Daniel
      /
    • APPEAL TO THE INDIAN RAILWAYS TO RESTORE SENIOR CITIZENS' TRAVEL CONCESSIONS:

      The withdrawal of senior citizens' travel concessions during the COVID-19 pandemic was a prudent measure at the time. It helped minimize travel and reduce the risk of infection, especially for a vu...

      By Jayakumar Daniel
      /
    • When there is no respect , there is no concession

      When government has 20 lakh crore to waive off of rich and regularly waiving off billions of loan this question is invalid that why the concession of rich should not be restores. There is no intent...

      By Anil Srivastava
      /
    • Restoring concession to in the rail fares to the senior citizens

      Before the covid, the senior citizens used to get 40-50% concession in the rail fares. But the railways stopped this concession giving the reason of covid. However even after 4 years of disappearan...

      By Shashidhar Viraktamath
      /
    • TICKET BOOKING 120 DAYS AHEAD "vis-à-vis" 60 DAYS AHEAD :

      I actually thought it would work the other way — reducing tout activity! This is what happens when we book on the very first day of the 120-day advance booking window: waitlists st...

      By Jayakumar Daniel
      /
    • SIXTY DAYS ADVANCE BOOKING INSTEAD OF 120 DAYS of ADVANCE BOOKING.

      Whatever railway research say that when 120 days was there for advance booking people didn't cancel the ticket and other people didn't get the chance to travel. First Railways get advance payment...

      By Brihaspati Patel
      /
    • Indian Railways Time Taken worsened

      Average Time Taken by Trains in 2014 :- Kolkata - Delhi (22 Hours) Mumbai - Delhi (20 Hours) Chennai- Delhi (32 Hours) Bangalore -Delhi (39 Hours) Hyderabad - Delhi ...

      By SN Mittal
      /
    • Painful rail travel

      Rail travel in India, esp during festivals, continues to be painful. The wait is endless, first for tickets, then for trains. Some delayed more than 10 hrs. Fancy VandeBharat 2 hrs late so far! No ...

      By Asha Rathi
      /
    • Is railways scamming in refunds

      Message from a friend Trains are late by 8-10 hours. I booked a train to go home for the festival, and the night before, I found out that the train was going to be 8 hours late. So, I c...

      By Sneha Goyal
      /
    • GLITCHES IN DIGITAL TICKETING

      As the Chennai Division of Southern Railways pursues its mission to promote digital transactions, ticketing staff have raised concerns about glitches that delay ticket issuance. Staff are reporting...

      By Jayakumar Daniel
      /
    • Rare Good move by Railways

      Indian Railways is Expected To Change Advance Reservation From 120 Day To 60 Day This Means Now You’ll Be Able To Book Train Tickets Only Upto 2 Months in Advance New Ru...

      By Ashima Gupta
      /
Share
Enter your email and mobile number and we will send you the instructions

Note - The email can sometime gets delivered to the spam folder, so the instruction will be send to your mobile as well

All My Circles
Invite to
(Maximum 500 email ids allowed.)