Mumbai: The Indian Railways has initiated a more transparent and customer friendly refund system for reserved e-tickets which are cancelled or which are fully waitlisted dropped tickets. This new system has been implemented by Indian Railways PSU, Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC). It is an OTP (One time Password) based refund system wherein OTP will be received as SMS on the registered mobile number of the passenger. This system is applicable to those e-tickets which are booked through IRCTC authorised agents only. The objective of the scheme is to streamline the cancellation refund process further so that cancellation amount is refunded timely to the customer by the agents.
According to a release issued by IRCTC, under this new process, whenever a ticket booked through authorised IRCTC agent is cancelled by the customer or fully waitlisted dropped ticket, OTP SMS will be sent on Customer/passenger mobile number (which was provided by the customer/passenger to the agent at the time of booking) along with the refund amount. The customer/passenger will be required to share the OTP with the agent who booked the ticket, for getting the refund amount.
Here’s how you can claim the refund from Indian Railways in easy steps:
1. In order to get benefit of the scheme, customer should provide correct mobile no. of one of the passengers to the IRCTC authorised agent at the time of booking reserved rail e-tickets.
2. Customer/passenger should ensure that the agent records his or her mobile no. correctly at the time of booking reserved rail e-tickets.
3. Only IRCTC authorised agents are permitted to book reserved rail e-tickets to the customer.
4. OTP based refund for cancelled tickets or fully waitlisted dropped tickets, will be processed only if the ticket is booked through IRCTC authorised agents.
