Premium Tatkal ticket cancellation, improvement suggested
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