Refund partial fare to rail passengers who pay charge but don't get full berth under RAC: Par panel

New Delhi: Charging full fare for tickets booked under the RAC category, where the ticket holder has to travel without a full berth, is not justified, a parliamentary committee has said.

The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), in its report "Punctuality and Travel Time in Train Operations in Indian Railways" tabled in Parliament on Wednesday, said that "charging full fare for tickets under RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation), where the ticket holder continues in the RAC category after chart preparation without a berth facility, is not justified."

The committee suggested that the railway ministry "should devise a mechanism to refund partial fare to the customer/traveller who could not get a full berth but had to pay full charges at the time of boarding."

Under the current practice, the railways charge full fare from a passenger to book a berth in trains under the RAC category. However, the passenger may remain in the RAC category and share the berth with another RAC passenger. Both passengers pay full fare to the railways.

The committee urged the railways to refund partial fare to such passengers and apprise it of the steps taken in this regard.

Addressing the need to review the criteria for Superfast trains in Indian Railways, the committee noted that in May 2007, the railways decided that if the average speed of a train, in both up and down directions, is a minimum of 55 kmph on broad gauge and 45 kmph on metre gauge, it would be treated as a Superfast (SF) train.

It said that the audit observed that the benchmark of 55 kmph for classifying a train as Superfast is itself low.

"There has been no change in the criteria of classification of SF trains since 2007," the committee said.

It also noted that out of 478 Superfast trains, the scheduled speed of 123 Superfast trains is less than 55 kmph.

In its response, the ministry told the committee that scrutiny of the list of 123 trains categorised as Superfast revealed that 47 trains have speeds over 55 kmph as per the current data. As for the remaining trains found to be operating at less than 55 kmph, the ministry said that the provision of additional stoppages after commencement of regular operations had affected the average speed of a few trains.

"The committee while expressing concern over categorisation of trains running at a mere speed of 55 kmph as 'Superfast Trains', convey their unhappiness over lack of adherence to the limit set by the ministry itself," the report said.

It added, "The committee are forced to conclude that the demarcation of trains as superfast was to apply higher charges. As and when the speed of trains fell below, the Indian Railways should have removed the train from the Superfast category and revised the fare."

The committee further considered the Superfast benchmark of 55 kmph "too conservative and anachronistic", and not in consonance with present times, especially when some East Asian countries like China and Japan run trains at speeds far beyond India's benchmarks.

"The committee recommend the ministry to review and rationalise the criteria for categorising the trains as 'Superfast' comparable with global standards approximating to 100 kmph and explore the feasibility of achieving a consistent speed of 100 kmph not just at the terminating point, but throughout the entire journey -- from the originating station, through intermediate stops, and up to the terminating point -- by the year 2030," the report said.

"The committee are also of the view that introduction of new trains tends to cause delays due to halting of other existing Express/Superfast trains for enabling them to pass and, therefore, recommend that the ministry should focus more on ensuring that the existing express and superfast trains run on time over other newly introduced trains," it added.