Railways has announced two new ways to cancel a confirmed train ticket to make sure passengers don't have to run to the station within a stipulated period of time to do so.
Railway passengers can now conveniently cancel their confirmed ticket by dialling 139 through their phones.
The passenger has to follow a few easy steps.
-- Dial 139 and give details of the ticket that you wish to cancel.
-- You will get a one-time-password (OTP).
-- To get the refund, you will only have to provide the OTP at the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counter.
Apart from this, confirmed tickets can now also be cancelled using the IRCTC website. Both the services have been made available starting Friday.
While launching the services, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that the move was an attempt to provide relief to passengers for cancellation of tickets and that both of the services were something the Railway Budget 2016-17 had promised.
Railways launched the cancellation facility through 139 and IRCTC site as an aid for passengers who will no longer have to rush to the counter to cancel confirmed tickets.
After the change in refund rules, a lot of passengers were finding it difficult to reach counters to cancel the reserved tickets within the stipulated time and as a result, they were losing money.
According to the new refund rules, railways has doubled the ticket cancellation charge to make sure only genuine passengers book and get confirmed tickets.
Railway Minister, Suresh Prabhu said that railways have its own challenges for carrying out expansion programme. "We have to expand the railway infrastructure for which fund is required. We have to increase the income for this and all these have to be carried out in a transparent manner. It is a challenging task," he said.
In order to bring about cancellation processes through 139 and IRCTC website, the railways also have to change the software accordingly.
(With inputs from PTI)
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