In order to stop the ticketing agents and other passengers misemploy the tickets, Railway Ministry has doubled the cancellation charges on a cancelled ticket now. The railway has also altered the refund procedure. The refund would happen only till 4 hours before the scheduled departure of the train. Previously a passenger could get a refund of the ticket after the train departs. This new rule has been in effect from 12 Nov 2015.
It’s being a practice of the local agents to get extra tickets even if they do not require to sell them. Later if they are not able to sell these tickets to the passengers, they simply cancel the ticket once the train departs at the scheduled time. In order to change this unnecessary bulk booking and bulk cancellation malpractice, this new rule has been implemented.
Senior railway minister quoted that there would not be any refund, once the train departs from the station at the scheduled time and to get a refund against cancellation one has to ask for it before four hours of the train departure.
The cancellation charge has been increased from RS 30 to RS 60 for a second class confirmed ticket, if cancelled 48 hours before the scheduled departure, similarly a third class ticket cancellation charge has also been doubled to RS 180 from RS 90.
Passengers who have tickets for reservation against cancelled tickets, and those who appear in the waiting list will get a refund till half an hour before the departure of the train.
According to the railway notification, the second class sleeper charge for cancellation is now been increased to Rs 120 from the previous charge of Rs 60 and a cancellation pinch for a second AC would now be Rs 200, which was previously Rs 100 only.
The new rule amended and implemented is as per Cancellation of Ticket and Refund of Fare Rules, 2015
Earlier the cancellation charge on a ticket was 25% of the ticket if the ticket was cancelled between 48 hrs to 6 hrs prior to the train departure. Now the percentage would remain the same but time slot has been revised. Same 25% would be deducted if the ticket is cancelled between 48 hrs to 12 hrs before the scheduled departure.
Also, the cancellation charge was 50% of the ticket, if one has to cancel the ticket before 6 hrs to 2 hrs of the departure time. Now the revised rule states a similar 50% deduction of the ticket as cancellation charge if cancelled between the time slots from 12 hrs to 4 hrs before the scheduled departure.
The railway has also declared the opening of new counters to enable easy cancellation refund to the passengers.
The new rule would definitely discourage the malpractices by the local ticketing agents and will help the genuine passengers to gets tickets. This policy has been implemented with an immediate effect.
