Question : Shramik Special Trains

(a) whether the Government has run special trains for journey of migrants in the country;

(b) if so , the details thereof;

(c) whether finances of Railways has been severely affected due to lockdown;

(d) if so, the details thereof;

(e) whether IRCTC has refunded amount of tickets of passengers which were cancelled by Railways during lockdown;

(f) if so, the details thereof and pending amount so far;

(g) whether there have been complaints of non-refund of cancelled tickets by IRCTC, if so, the details of complaint resolution mechanism and action taken thereon; and

(h) the initiatives/steps being taken by the Government for normal operation of trains in the country?

MINISTER OF RAILWAYS AND COMMERCE & INDUSTRY
(SHRI PIYUSH GOYAL)

(a) & (b) Yes, Sir. Keeping in view the urgent requirement of movement of stranded persons, Shramik specials were organized in a mission mode. These Shramik specials were organized as trains on demand as and when State Governments requisition these trains in accordance with the protocol and guidelines given by the Government. In all, 4621 Shramik Special have been operated between 1st May, 2020 to 31st August, 2020 carrying 63.19 Lakh passengers to their home State.

(c) &(d) Owing to the discontinuance of passenger services after the introduction of the lockdown to contain COVID-19 pandemic, upto the end of August, the number of originating passengers has been 1.27% of the corresponding period last year and freight loading has been 86.6% of the corresponding period. Consequently, the traffic revenue of Railways’ to the end of August 2020, at ? 41,844.31 Crore has declined by 42.3% over the corresponding period last year.

(e) & (f): Yes, Sir. The details of amount refunded and that pending from 22.03.2020 to 30.06.2020 is as under:-
i. Number of refund cases:- 1,77,59,579
ii. Refunded amount :- ? 2381.03 Crore
iii. Number of pending cases due to Customer Account closed :- 855
iv. Amount to be refunded :- ? 10.07 lakh
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has a proper mechanism to contact the customers through their registered email ID when refund is pending due to closing of bank account from which payment was made for the ticket. In such cases, customers are requested to provide their new bank details to process the refund and on receipt of these details, the amount is transferred.

(g) IRCTC is currently running Customer Care Centre 24 x 7 x 365 to address customers’s enquiries through phone and E-mails. Apart from this, it is also handling customer grievances that are received from other sources such as:- Rail Madad of Ministry of Railways, CPGRAM portal of Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions, INGRAM portal of Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution and other grievances received from different sources.

(h) Train services are being gradually started, in phases, as special trains, as detailed below:-
i. 15 pairs of Rajdhani specials were introduced with effect from 12.05.2020.
ii. 100 pairs of Special trains were introduced with effect from 01.06.2020.
iii. 43 pairs of special trains were started from 12.09.2020.
iv. 705 Suburban services (Central Railway-355 & Western Railway-350) were started from 15.06.2020.
Additional Special trains, in coordination with the State Governments, were also run as per demand for Ganapati festival, and IIT-JEE/NEET and NDA & Naval Academy examinations conducted by Union Public Service Commission (UPSC).
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