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IRCTC On Tejas Train: IRCTC has discontinued the scheme of paying compensation to passengers on delay of private trains five years ago. Also, citing privacy policy, it has refused to give the reason for discontinuing this scheme. This information was received in response to an application filed by news agency ‘Bhasha’ under the Right to Information (RTI) Act. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) was established by the Ministry of Railways with the basic objective of operating the entire catering and tourism activities of the railways and currently it also operates ticket booking and private trains.
According to IRCTC, under this scheme, Rs 26 lakh was given to the passengers as compensation from October 4, 2019 to February 16 this year. According to the information provided by IRCTC, in 2023-24 alone, compensation of Rs 15.65 lakh was given to the passengers. IRCTC said in response to the RTI, “The scheme providing compensation in case of delay or delay in running of private trains was discontinued on 15 February 2024.” IRCTC has refused to give the reason for discontinuing this scheme, citing privacy policy.
Information received from RTI
According to the information received from RTI, IRCTC operates two Tejas trains, one of which was started from New Delhi to Lucknow (from October 4, 2019) and the other from Ahmedabad to Mumbai (from January 17, 2020). According to the information, the reason behind giving compensation to the passengers was to attract passengers towards these trains, which was part of marketing activities. According to the information received under RTI, if we talk about the compensation given by IRCTC in the last five years, then Rs 1.78 lakh in 2019-20, zero in 2020-21, Rs 96 thousand in 2021-22, Rs 7.74 lakh in 2022-23 and Rs 15.65 lakh in 2023-24 has been given to the passengers.
How much compensation was given
On the question regarding the amount of compensation given to the passenger on train delay, IRCTC said that Rs 100 was given to the passenger as compensation for delay of 60 to 120 minutes and Rs 250 for delay of 120 to 240 minutes. According to IRCTC, the full fare was refunded to the passengers in case of cancellation of the train and in case of delay, food and drink facilities were also provided to the passengers.
