Revised railway ticket refund rules from today

The revised rules for refund of cancelled railway tickets, which are aimed at facilitating early confirmation of wait-listed passengers, have come into effect from Wednesday.

On June 25, Railway Ministry has revised its refund rules comprehensively under which passengers will have to present their confirmed tickets at least 48 hours before the journey instead of existing 24 hours to get the maximum refund.

To get a refund with cancellation charges of 25 percent of the fare, passengers will now have to cancel their confirmed tickets within 48 hours and at least six hours before the train’s departure against the existing four hours, the ministry said.

The existing window of time for the same amount of fare deduction is between 24 hours to four hours before the train’s scheduled departure.

Railway is deducting a minimum per passenger cancellation charge at the flat rate of Rs 120 for AC first class/executive class, Rs 100 for AC-II tier/first class, Rs 90 for AC III-tier, economy and chair car, Rs 60 for sleeper class and Rs 30 for second class.

If the ticket is presented for cancellation within six hours before the train’s scheduled departure of the train and upto two hours after its actual departure, the cancellation charge would be 50 percent of the fare subject to a minimum of the charge.

The old rules, which were valid till June 30, allowed the cancellation of the tickets upto 12 hours after the train’s departure if the distance was 500 km or more.

According to the new rules, no refund will be granted on the reserved ticket if it is surrendered for cancellation two hours after the train’s actual departure.

Under the new rules, the time for filing of refund claims has been reduced from existing 90 days to 10 days of the train’s departure in case of unforeseen circumstances like strike or any natural causes like floods.

According to the new rules, even those with waitlisted or RAC tickets would have to cancel their tickets three hours before the train’s actual departure to get the refund after deduction of clerkage charge of Rs 30 once the new rules are implemented from July 1.

New rules would not allow any refund two hours after the train’s departure. Existing rules permit cancellation till three hours after the train’s departure.

Revised rules would reduce last-minute cancellation and give Railway more time to confirm and upgrade tickets of other passengers in the waiting list, railway officials said.