IRCTC refund rules: In a big relief for passengers, Piyush Goyal-led Indian Railways has decided to provide full refund for all regular train tickets booked on or prior to April 14, 2020. This means that if you have booked a regular train ticket on April 14, 2020 for a train up to 120 days from then, the train will now be cancelled and full refund will be provided to you by IRCTC. In cases where the national transporter cancels trains, IRCTC has always advised passengers not to cancel their tickets. According to IRCTC, once the train is cancelled in the system by Indian Railways, an automatic full refund will be initiated.
Meanwhile, Indian Railways will continue to run its 230 IRCTC special trains on specified routes to allow for urgent journeys. In view of the spread of Coronavirus or COVID-19, Indian Railways had suspended advance reservation for regular train services from April 15. All regular train services of the national transporter have been cancelled since March 25, when the nationwide lockdown began. However, in order to assist the movement of stranded citizens and those who have to undertake urgent train journeys, Indian Railways started IRCTC special trains services from May 12. Initially, the IRCTC special trains consisted 30 Rajdhani-style air-conditioned trains, including the to-and-fro trips.
Since June 1, another 200 IRCTC special trains were launched including non-AC sleeper train services as well. The tickets for these IRCTC special trains can be booked on the IRCTC website (irctc.co.in), IRCTC mobile app, at railway station reservation counters, post offices etc. All the IRCTC special trains that are presently being run are fully reserved services with limited waitlisted tickets. All passengers travelling in these trains have to follow the protocols decided by the Ministry of Home Affairs with regards to social distancing and thermal screening.
