Now, the Ministry of Railways has to devise a mechanism for partially refunding ticket fares to RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation) passengers who are charged the full fare but do not get a full berth during travel, as per the suggestion by the parliamentary committee.
Parliamentary Panel Suggested Partial Refund for RAC Passengers
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) said
that charging full fare from RAC passengers without a berth facility is ‘not justified’ as mentioned in a report titled ‘Punctuality and Travel Time in Train Operations in Indian Railways’, tabled in Parliament on February 4.
Moving ahead, the statement notes, “The Committee also feel that charging of full fare for tickets under RAC and where the ticket holder continues in RAC category after Chart Preparation without berth facility is not justified and, therefore, desire that the Ministry should devise a mechanism to refund partial fare to the customer/traveler who could not get full berth but had to pay full charges at the time of boarding.”
Presently, no refund of fare is admissible on RAC e-tickets if the ticket is not cancelled or a TDR is not filed online up to 30 minutes before the scheduled departure of the train, according to IRCTC.
Further adding, “In case, on a party e-ticket or a family e-ticket issued for travel of more than one passenger, some passengers have confirmed reservation and others are on RAC or waiting list, full refund of fare, less clerkage, shall be admissible for confirmed passengers also subject to the condition that the ticket shall be cancelled online or online TDR shall be filed for all the passengers up to thirty minutes before the scheduled departure of the train.”
Revised RAC Rules
Prior to this, the national transporter revised the rules for RAC ticket holders at the start of this year.
As per this latest upgrade, they have fully restricted the boarding for RAC passengers on 13 trains, including the Howrah–Kamakhya–Howrah Vande Bharat Sleeper Express.
Let’s take a look at the full list of 12 trains where RAC ticket holders are not permitted to travel.
- Guwahati (Kamakhya) – Rohtak Amrit Bharat Express
- Dibrugarh – Lucknow (Gomti Nagar) Amrit Bharat Express
- New Jalpaiguri – Nagercoil Amrit Bharat Express
- New Jalpaiguri – Tiruchirappalli Amrit Bharat Express
- Alipurduar – SMVT Bengaluru Amrit Bharat Express
- Alipurduar – Mumbai (Panvel) Amrit Bharat Express
- Kolkata (Santragachi) – Tambaram Amrit Bharat Express
- Kolkata (Howrah) – Anand Vihar Terminal Amrit Bharat Express
- Kolkata (Sealdah) – Banaras Amrit Bharat Express
- Thiruvananthapuram Central-Tambaram Amrit Bharat Express
- Thiruvananthapuram North-Charlapalli Amrit Bharat Express
- Nagercoil Jn-Mangaluru Jn Amrit Bharat Express
