An appeal to Indian Railways to withdraw deduction of cancellation fee from wait listed tickets!

An appeal to Indian Railways to withdraw deduction of cancellation fee from wait listed tickets!

Cancellation fee from wait listed passengers

As per Railway Rules for refund of wait listed tickets which could not be confirmed till preparation of chart:

   1. Ticket need to be presented for cancellation half an hour before scheduled departure of train 
2. An amount of Rs. 60/- shall be deducted towards clerkage charges which prior to 12.11.2015 was Rs. 30/-

Both these rules seem to be anti-consumer. First of all when it is wait listed, why half an hour prior to the departure of train should be stipulated. In case of hard copy of ticket the intending person looks to be penalized as the confirmation or otherwise is known at the time of preparation of chart which in most of the cases is 2-3 hours prior to scheduled departure of train and the person had to rush for its refund and then if the intended person reaches in time, another amount of Rs. 60/- gets deducted. Railway is also making huge amount of interest during the period of buying the wait listed ticket and making the refund.

During the year 2016-17 and 2017-18, the number of passengers who were still wait listed at the time of preparation of chart were 28 Million and 29 Million respectively. An amount of Rs. 12928 million and Rs. 13721 million respectively was collected from the wait listed passengers. An amount of Rs. 716 million and Rs. 877 million was deducted towards clerkage charges while making refund during 2016-17 and 2017-19 respectively.

While an amount of Rs. 7416 million during 2016-17 and Rs. 9138 million during 2017-18 which was collected from the wait listed passengers who could not get confirmation at the time of chart preparation was retained by the Railways during the period between the time of booking and refund, still the deduction of such a huge money of Rs. 716 million and Rs. 877 million seems to be unethically as basically these passengers could not be provided confirmed seats by the Railways. In other words it seems to be reward to Railways for its own failure in providing confirmed seats.

It is learnt that while so many passengers are left waiting at the time of waiting, the tatkal booking on high prices are adapted by the Railways. The Railway Authorities are appealed to kindly revisit its cancellation policy of deducting clerkage fee from the wait listed passengers and stipulation of half an hour prior to scheduled departure of train. As a suggestion, let the chart preparation take place 24 hrs prior to scheduled departure of train and tatkal booking starts only for the left over seats if any after allocating seats to wait listed passengers.