Reservation of IRCTC special train : Booking, Vancellation, RAC, new rules(refund policy) explained

– IRCTC has started the new Services for the cancellation, booking, RAC and other policies within the special trains.
-The Indian Railways’ e-ticketing Services, IRCTC has started booking tickets for the special 15 trains, which can start running from 12th may evening. The Ministry of Railways announced the partial continuation of the train operations Sunday, after a long interval of around 50 days, due to the nationwide lockdown started in India to control the spread of the deadly coronavirus.

The pair of 15 trains will run from capital of India (Delhi) train station for 15 destinations which are: Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad, Secunderabad and Jammu Tawi.

IRCTC has amended a number of its existing Services to alter and modify, cancellation, RAC and other policies in these trains.

Here are the new IRCTC train booking rules:

1) The Advanced Reservation Period (ADR) for these special trains are a maximum of seven days.
2) The tickets for these special trains will be booked only on the IRCTC mobile APP or website. Ticket booking counters at the railway stations will be opened in a phased manner.

3) There is online cancellation of tickets allowed upto 24 hours before the scheduled time of train’s departure. The cancellation charges are 50% of the fare.

4) People who earlier booked tickets to travel during this era cannot valid for these trains.(due to Change of train name and number)
5) No waitlist(WL) Or RAC ticket are issued to avoid the more interaction.

6) The tickets won’t include Catering charges. IRCTC will make arrangement for limited eatables and packaged beverage on payment basis. The passengers are requested to carry their own food and beverage.

7) For AC compartment, blankets are not provided.
8) The passengers shall reach the station a minimum of 90 minutes before time to facilitate thermal screening at the station.

9) All seats are not be available for booking within the passenger trains.

10) Only the passengers with valid confirmed tickets are permitted to enter the railway stations.

IRCTC new guidelines for TTEs :-

On board ticket checking staff will be without their uniform black coat and tie! Instead, they will wear masks, PPEs, gloves and check tickets with magnifying glasses. The announcement was made by the national transporter recently in view of the novel COVID-19 pandemic.
As per the guidelines, all the staff will be supplied with a sufficient number of hand gloves, masks, head covers, face shields, soap as well as sanitizer so that they can safely perform their duty.

To prevent Physical handling of train tickets for verifying the tickets, the TTEs will be provided a magnifying glass if possible, so that they can verified the ticket details from a distance without touching the ticket.