The Indian Railways has cancelled the bookings of all tickets for regular passenger trains for travel on or before June 30. A full refund will be given to all passengers whose tickets have been cancelled. However, special Shramik trains will continue to run.
Earlier, the Indian Railways had resumed train bookings through Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) from Monday, almost two months after its services were suspended in view of coronavirus lockdown.
The tickets, which are to be cancelled, were booked during the lockdown period when the railways was allowing bookings for journeys in June.
Passengers who are disallowed from travelling on trains because of symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus will receive full refund for their tickets, the railways has said.
According to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, all passengers shall be compulsorily screened and only asymptomatic passengers shall be allowed to enter/board trains.
“If, during screening, a passenger has very high temperature/symptoms of Covid-19 etc., he shall not be allowed to travel despite having confirmed tickets. In such case full refund shall be provided to the passenger,” the order stated.
In case of a group ticket if one passenger is found unfit to travel but the other passengers on the same PNR want to travel, full refund of fare shall be granted to the passenger who was not allowed to travel.
“For all the above cases, TTE certificates as per extant practice shall be issued to the passenger at the entry/checking/screening point itself mentioning number of passengers not travelled due to symptoms of Covid-19 in one or more passengers,” it stated.
“Full fare for the part passenger/full who have not travelled shall be refunded by IRCTC in the customer’s account,” it said.