IRCTC to provide instant refund on i-pay for ticket cancellation Staff Reporter : Trying to provide more incentive to travellers for booking ticket on on-line platform Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has initiated same day refund of money in case of cancellation of tickets. However their is a catch to claim the refund the payment needs to have been done through IRCTC i-pay. IRCTC has launched its own internal payment gateway to maximise on the on-line booking of railway tickets that has caught on big scale due to penetration of mobile internet in the country. Currently refund on cancellation of railway ticket on IRCTC takes almost two to three days. So now in case payment is made through i-pay then refund would be reflected in accounts of travellers almost instantly. This step on part of IRCTC is surely going to bring in more people on website where several measures is undertaken to facilitate easy booking and cancellation of railway tickets. The payment gateway is a big time business and so far domination is of few private banks and some starts-ups. IRCTC is eyeing the lucrative market since it handles a substantial ticket booking traffic of Indian Railways. Barring the first wave of COVID-19 when for three months at stretch the passenger trains were under suspension in country IRCTC has never looked back since it rolled out on-line ticket booking. The last year lockdown hammered down the subsidiary of Indian Railway as it suffered huge losses. That time even after lockdown was initiated long distance trains resumption to pre-lockdown period was quite slow. And by the time full fledged train operation were initiated the second wave of COVID-19 surfaced and again several trains were cancelled owing to poor response from passengers. Especially now in post COVID-19 scenario on-line ticket booking is likely to increase in time to come more so with rollout of 5g system on mobiles. People would give preference to planning their travel plan in comfort sitting of their homes rather than physically going to passenger reservation system (PRS) windows where crowding is a regular complaint. Also the rising cost of petrol too is now a deterrent for citizens to think of physically visiting PRS to book the tickets and later again for cancellation in case travel plans change that occurs quite a number of times. Hence IRCTC move is likely to bring back cheers to the group.

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