Parliament Panel Flags RAC Fare “Not Justified”, Seeks Refunds for Passengers Without Full Berths
Parliament Panel Flags RAC Fare “Not Justified”, Seeks Refunds for Passengers Without Full Berths
Public Accounts Committee urges Railways to return partial fare to RAC travellers forced to share berths despite paying full charges.
Passengers travelling on RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation) tickets may soon get financial relief, as a parliamentary committee has called out the current practice of charging full fare without guaranteeing a full berth.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC), in its report “Punctuality and Travel Time in Train Operations in Indian Railways” tabled in Parliament, 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.”
Under existing rules, passengers booking under RAC pay the complete fare amount even though they may ultimately have to share a berth with another RAC passenger. In many cases, travellers do not receive a confirmed full sleeping berth even after chart preparation, raising concerns over fairness in pricing.
The PAC recommended 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.”
The committee urged Indian Railways to take concrete steps to implement such refunds and keep Parliament informed of progress.
The report also touched upon broader issues of train operations and categorisation, including the long-standing criteria for “Superfast” trains. The committee noted that the benchmark of 55 kmph for classifying a train as Superfast is outdated and questioned whether higher fares are being levied without corresponding speed standards.
“The committee are forced to conclude that the demarcation of trains as superfast was to apply higher charges,” the report said, adding that trains falling below the required speed should have been removed from the category with fares revised accordingly.
The PAC further recommended reviewing speed benchmarks to align closer with global standards and improving punctuality rather than focusing only on launching new services.
