Booking tickets on the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website? Just be sure you complete the transaction and undertake the journey. Complaints of refunds not being given on time, incomplete online transactions and passengers who have cancelled their online tickets not getting their money back on time are on the rise.
With no proper complaint mechanism in place, hapless railway passengers are airing their grievances on online consumer websites and shooting off letters and emails to the IRCTC. Passengers also claim that the phone numbers to register complaints provided by the IRCTC are always non-functional or busy.
The IRCTC contributes to nearly 15% of the revenue generated by the Indian Railways every year.
While local IRCTC officials from the western region were unreachable, IRCTC's national managing director Rakesh Kumar Tandon asked this journalist to point out specific cases.
Subhash Gupta, former member of the National Railway Users Consultative Committee, said, "IRCTC has a bad name as far as refunds are concerned. Refund transactions take time and there seems to be no proper mechanism in place to address complaints. I had to fight a case of a commuter from Ambernath who did not get his refund for more than a month. Initially, they told him that the money would be credited to the bank and then they backtracked."
Arun Saxena, president of the International Consumer Rights Protection Council, said he had a large number of passengers approaching him. "I have issued several notices to the IRCTC on refunds. The refund issue makes up a bulk of the complaints. The complaint numbers given by the IRCTC are never functional and passengers are left in the lurch," Saxena told DNA.
Other IRCTC officials stated that most of the complaints arise because passengers are not aware of categorical rules and there is only a need to set up a separate cell to address complaints.
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