New Delhi: The railways has started keeping records of destination address of all passengers booking their tickets on the IRCTC website to help facilitate contact tracing in case COVID-19 infections are detected among them later, officials said Thursday.
The provision to include the destination address has been made on the IRCTC website from May 13. "With effect from May 13, IRCTC taking destination address of all passengers booking tickets. This will help in contact tracing, if required later," Railway spokesperson RD Bajpai said, adding it would now be a permanent feature for the near future.
He also said that keeping in view the coronavirus crisis, it will be mandatory for passengers to fill up their address details for any bookings. Earlier, in at least 12 cases, passengers travelling in trains were later found to be COVID-19 positive.
Ministry of Railways has issued revised guidelines on cancellation of already booked tickets and refund of fare, with effect from March 21. For trains cancelled by Railways and with respect to PSR Counter Ticket, the guidelines from the Ministry of Railways states, "Refund across the counter can be taken on submission of Ticket up to six months from date of journey (instead of 3 days excluding day of journey)." For E-ticket--it is Auto Refunded as per the guidelines.
For train not cancelled, however, if the passenger does not want to perform journey, the guidelines states, "As a special case, full refund for already booked reserved tickets, both PSR counter generated and E-tickets shall be given."
