Indian Railways revised the rules in respect of the reserved tickets' cancellation that come in to force from July 1.  

At present a reserved ticket can be cancelled before 24 hours of the departure of the train which will not be so after July1. In order to get 75% of the refund of the ticket cost a passenger now can claim before 6 hours of the train’s departure that is 8 hours at present.  It gives more time to the passenger to decide whether to travel or not.

If the ticket is presented for cancellation within 6 hours to the train’s departure and before 2 hours after the departure will get 50% of the ticket cost.  At present a passenger travelling a minimum of 500 kilo meters is entitled to get 50% of the amount if the ticket is cancelled before 12 hours from its departure.  But now it is not so.  One has to cancel before 2 hours from the departure of that train if 50% is to be collected.  

At present a refund of the money can be claimed up to 90 days if floods, strikes or any such situation beyond control happens.  Now the time to claim refund is reduced to 10 days in those circumstances.

Even RAC and Waitlist passengers are to cancel 3 hours before the departure time to get the refund with a nominal charge of Rs.30/-

All the changes are made, as the Railway authorities say, only to reduce the chances of misuse of the reserved tickets by the touts.

(AW-SriJa)