The Indian Railways has again revised the refund rules, doubling the cancellation charges and reducing the window time for cancellation of tickets with effect from November 12.
As per the new rules, no refund would be granted for confirmed tickets if they are cancelled after four hours before the scheduled departure of the train, as against the existing rule (June 25) of 50 per cent refund if the tickets were cancelled before two hours after the actual departure of the train, as per the Commercial Circular 64 issued by the Railway Board on Friday.
The minimum cancellation charges have been fixed at Rs. 240 for AC I/ Executive class (Rs. 120), Rs. 200 for AC II/ First class (Rs. 100), Rs. 180 for AC III/ AC chair car (Rs. 90), Rs. 120 for sleeper class (Rs. 60) and Rs. 60 for second class (Rs. 30).
If reserved tickets are cancelled after 48 hours and up to 12 hours of the scheduled departure, 25 per cent of the fare is deducted while giving the refund while 50 per cent of the fare is deducted if tickets are cancelled within 12 hours and up to four hours of the scheduled departure, both subject to minimum cancellation charges.
The clerkage charges for cancellation of unreserved tickets and reserved tickets under RAC/ waitlist too have been doubled, from Rs. 15 to Rs. 30 and from Rs. 30 to Rs. 60 respectively.
Refund after deducting clerkage would be made only if the tickets are cancelled up to 30 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train.
While the Railways claimed it intended to curb the misuse of cancellation/ refund procedure by touts through the new rules, K.N. Krishna Prasad, a retired government officer, said the rules would affect genuine passengers. If a passenger had to cancel the journey for unavoidable circumstances at the last minute, he would lose almost the entire ticket amount, he said.
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