Dear Railway Minstry,
I had to travel to Bangalore last minute. I ended up booking a current ticket in Chennai Duronto #12270 at 10:47 PM on Dec 31, 2016 till Chennai as there was no other option for my last minute plan. The train was scheduled to arrive at 11:59 PM (which was around 2 hours from when we booked) but due to fog, most of the trains running late (including this train) & we were well aware of it.
We inquired about ticket cancelation at the PRS counter of Bhopal station. We have been told that the current ticket can only be canceled at the boarding station which was Habibganj. They mentioned that prior approval of station master is needed for cancellation.
At that moment, the train was expected to arrive at 6 AM on Jan 1st. The train got further delayed & then expected to arrive at 2:30 PM . So we reached Habibganj station at around 1 PM. We discovered that another train Telangana Express which will go till Hyderabad is scheduled to arrive before Chennai Duronto. I spoke to the TT on the station who assured that there are tickets available in the train.
On the said assurance, we decided to cancel the Duronto ticket & decided to board Telangana Exp. I gave the ticket to my brother for cancelation & boarded Telangana Exp which departed at around 2:15 PM. Following incidents happened in the order mentioned below with the timelines on Jan 1st 2017
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2:20 PM My brother went to the station master & found his room locked. Another official there said the station master is away for lunch. He can either choose to wait or should go to the PRS counter.
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2:25 PM My brother hurried to the PRS counter. The person at the PRS counter took the ticket & went inside. After a couple of minutes, he came back & said the ticket cant be cancelled as the train has arrived. My brother called me up. I told him that the ticket can be cancelled till train departure & when he cross-questioned, he was instructed to go upstairs & check with station master or any other railway officer.
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2:30 PM My brother went to station master again. The same thing happened as the station master was unavailable, he was asked to wait. My brother desperately reached out to some other officials who then said that the train is now departed & nothing can happen. So my brother left the station at around 2:40 PM.
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4:41 PM I went to coms.indianrailways.gov.in & filed complaint for the above incidence. I got email & sms confirmation for the same.
- Mon Jan 2 4:38 PM I got an email stating the complaint has been attended to & has been closed. This was a shocker. So I filed another complaint (the 2nd sms in the above screenshot. The complaint was filed at around 7:20 PM on Jan 2).
- Mon Jan 2 6:11 PM My friend tweeted about this issue & he got a reply concerned official has been intimated.
- Wed Jan 3 Since nothing has happened so far, I got desperate & tweeted myself
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Tue Jan 3 6:00 PM I got a call from Mr Vikas Aggarwal (Phone number 9752415998). He said he is from Bhopal Railways complaint resolution department (or something like that). He heard the whole matter. He asked questions around some specifics largely to ascertain if the whole situation happened or not (like asking if there was a lady or gents on the counter etc). He said he will look into this & disconnected the call.
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Tue Jan 3 7:00 PM Mr Vikas called up again & said we are taking action against the officials sitting at the PRS counter. For refund, you can write a letter to the chief commercial manager stating the entire incident based on which the CCM shall process the refund. He said he is closing the complaint. I asked him why is he closing the complaint. He said this is the procedure. I insisted to keep the complaint open to which he responded saying if not him, someone else will close the complaint. Finally, he gave up & said he will not close the complaint.
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Sun Jan 8 6:47 PM As of writing this open letter, I have not got any reverts/remarks/updates regarding the case. I am not sure if my requests have been registered.
Below are the suggestions I would like to pass to you as feedback in the current Railway system
- Please instruct PRS official to be helpful & stick to the right code of conduct.
- Since an I-ticket was presented which is a good enough proof that nobody is traveling on the ticket, the corrective action (cancellation / partial-cancellation) should have been done immediately.
- In case when trains run real late, why there is so much of scrutny about train departure. I understand the situation is beyond Indian Railways control like fog etc, but you should give some leeway to the passengers as well.
- Please change your existing ticketing system. The whole concept (if at all that is how your system works) of closing a complaint to be able to register remarks does not make sense. Ideally, the complaint should only be closed when it actually get resolved. While some of the biggest support companies like Freshdesk is coming out of India, there is no reason why the world’s biggest railway system follows such an absurd concept.
- It seems there is a new ‘on the fly ticket issuance’ system in which the TT can only issue ticket to the station he is incharge of. It seems this provision curbs corruption practices but this is extremely uncomfortable for the travellers as we have to keep requesting for ticket to the TT whenever he changes. That might also mean moving to a new seat with our luggage if the new TT ends up issuing a different berth. Please look into the convenience of travellers into this.
Last but not the least, please take a look into my refund situation. I have not yet written to CCM. Should I be doing that. Please put a comment to this system for speedy & open resolution if you can. Another feedback, if you have a system that only sends email/sms for resolution, you probably should be looking at changing it :-).
Thanks
Shilpa Bejoria
Last Complaint No - W/WC/BPL/000181816