The Railways has earned Rs 604.40 crore as non-refundable convenience fee on online tickets during this financial year up to December 31, making it around Rs 2.20 crore per day, the ministry data presented in Lok Sabha on Wednesday shows.
The data analysed by News18 shows that this amount has almost doubled between 2019-20 and 2021-22. In 2019-20, the railways collected Rs 352.33 crore as non-refundable convenience fee while in the next year, during the pandemic-induced nationwide lockdown, the amount was Rs 299.17 crore. In 2021-22, when the country came back to normalcy, Rs 694.08 crore was collected as non-refundable convenience fee.
The average per day collection in 2019-20 was around Rs 1 crore that dropped to Rs 0.81 crore in 2020-21. In 2021-22, the amount collected as the non-refundable convenience fee was Rs 1.90 crore.
The ministry said cancellation or clerkage charge is levied on cancellation of tickets as per Railway Passengers (Cancellation of Tickets and Refund of Fare) Rules 2015. In addition to the normal fare indicated on the reserved tickets issued through computerised passenger reservation system (PRS) counters, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) realises convenience fee from the passengers who book online reserved e-tickets through the e-ticketing platform.
This amount is Rs 30 and Rs 20 for air-conditioned classes and Rs 15 and Rs 10 for non-air-conditioned classes depending on the mode of payment. Payments done by using UPI get an additional discount per ticket, while the larger amount is for payments done using net banking or debit cards.
“On cancellation of the ticket, this convenience fee is not refunded,” the ministry said as it listed the details of convenience fee collected by IRCTC during financial years 2019-20 onwards.
Passengers can book reserved tickets
The ministry further said the cancellation or clerkage charges are collected by IRCTC based on instructions issued by Railways from time to time.
Moreover, reserved tickets can also be booked through computerised PRS counters of Indian Railways and also through authorised ticketing agents engaged for issuing reserved tickets.
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