A message is being shared widely on social media with a claim that Indian Railways has cancelled around 39 lakh tickets and are deducting around 20 rupees on every ticket. Let’s try to analyze the claim made in the post.
Claim: Indian Railways is deducting around 20 rupees on every cancelled ticket.
Fact: No, there is no deduction of around 20 rupees on every cancelled ticket. In a statement, Indian Railways has said that ‘Convenience fee is not refunded’. Convenience fee is charged on Railways e-tickets booked through IRCTC website. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
Indian Railways has cancelled all the passenger train services till 03 May 2020 and started giving full refunds for all the cancelled tickets.
IRCTC has uploaded a document on its website to clear the doubts regarding the cancellation and refunds. It advises users ‘not to cancel their e-tickets as it will be automatically cancelled. If user has cancelled any such ticket and have got partial refund, IRCTC will process rest refund amount into user’s account through an automated process.’
While it is refunding the full ticket amount, it is not refunding the full deducted amount on all the tickets. In a statement, the railways explained that, “When train is cancelled, the passenger is refunded full fare. Convenience fee is not refunded which are nominal to an individual and used for day-to-day maintenance and upgradation of the ticketing facility“. Convenience fee is charged on Railways e-tickets booked through IRCTC website. So, the deduction is not made on all the tickets. Tickets booked at the counter could get a full refund.
Also, Indian Railways have cancelled a total of around 94 lakh ticket bookings (55 lakh ticket bookings made for travel between March 22 and April 14 and 39 lakh bookings made for travel between April 15 and May 3).
To sum it up, Indian Railways is not deducting around 20 rupees on every cancelled ticket.
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