Big news for IRCTC train ticket holders! In a new passenger-friendly move, you won’t have to worry about changing your boarding station before catching your train on time. The Railways Ministry has started a new facility where passengers will be able to change and manage their boarding station even four hours before the scheduled departure of the train. According to earlier rules, passengers can change their boarding railway stations around 24 hours before the scheduled departure of the train.
An IRCTC official told Financial Express Online that this facility has already been implemented across the Indian Railways network. Under this new plan, the Railway Ministry has made changes in the IRCTC ticketing system for the convenience and ease of passengers. The special feature of this scheme is that passengers can change the boarding station more than once. On changing the boarding station, the passengers will not have to pay the extra fare, but if the change has been made within a period of 24 hours, then the refund on the ticket will not be available.
For example, if a passenger has booked a railway ticket for travelling between Gorakhpur and Delhi and later boarded the train from Lucknow by changing the boarding station, then the fare between Gorakhpur and Lucknow will not be returned or refunded. However, if the passenger wants to travel from Gorakhpur instead of Lucknow, after changing the boarding station, this facility will be available to the passenger only if the berth in the particular train is empty. Otherwise, if the berth is occupied, the passenger will not be allowed to travel. In fact, upon a change in boarding, the empty berth can be allotted to another passenger as well. The Railway Board had directed all the zonal railway offices for implementing the same.
Meanwhile, according to an earlier report, passengers can also change their boarding station, by sitting at home itself. Apart from the official website of IRCTC as well as the railway ticket counters, there will be facility of changing the boarding station through the Railway Inquiry Number ‘139’. For this, the Center for Railway Information System (CRIS) has begun the process of updating the ticketing system.