All you need to know about the delay in refunds post the ticket cancellation:
The Indian Rail Catering and Tourism Corporation is supposed to return Rs. 20 crore to passengers who have cancelled their long-distance journeys.
The overall story:
The money spent by a passenger on booking tickets using the IRCTC website is deposited with the Indian Railways.
In cases where a ticket is cancelled, it is IRCTC’s responsibility to verify a passenger’s claim for refund, and inform the railways authorities, so that they can transfer the required amount into the IRCTC’s account. It is from here that the amount is passed on to the concerned claimant. Presently, the process takes 7 to 20 days.
A high-level meeting was held between the Western and Central railway officials and IRCTC to address the issue. It was learnt that all the parties claimed of receiving countless complaints about the delay in receiving refunds. The officials too agreed that the occurrence of delay is an unfair practice.
As told by a senior railway official, “When a booking can be done immediately, then there is no reason why refund should take time. We have asked the IRCTC to sort out the issue at the earliest”.
On the other hand, IRCTC officials claimed that they have already initiated the process of resolving the process of delayed refunds.
As per the Chairman and Managing Director of IRCTC, Dr. A. K. Manoch, “We are working towards improving the software, for which Rs. 60 lakh is being spent. This will help us improve the system, which is currently being tested. Even the mobile app, IRCTC Connect, will be refined to make it user-friendly”.
