Cash-starved Railways stops giving cash against cancelled tickets

Faced with shortage of small denomination notes and new currency notes to repay huge amounts of cash against heavy cancellation of tickets booked overnight to beat the sudden demonetisation, the Railways has stopped giving refunds in cash for cancelled tickets and instead is issuing ticket deposit receipts (TDR).

Also, for higher amounts of Rs10,000 or above, Railways will only transfer the amount to the customer's bank account and the person concerned is required to furnish account details for receiving the amount while cancelling the ticket.

The government while announcing demonitisation of Rs1,000 and Rs500 notes from the midnight of 8 October, had exempted a few emergency services like hospitals, petrol pumps, railways and airports for three days up to 11 November from cash dealings in these high-denomination notes.

Holders if black money and fake currency, however, used this opportunity to book train tickets in large numbers using hoarded high-denomination notes to offset the impact of demonitisation – hoping to collect fresh currency to hoard again.

"So we are giving TDR to those who are cancelling tickets and if the refund amount is Rs10,000 or more then it would be returned to the bank account of the person," a railways official said.

The railways earned Rs123 crore on ticket sales on October 9 as against the collection of Rs109 crore on October 8, an increase of Rs14 crore.

On the other hand, e-ticketing business declined by about 10 per cent on 9 November compared to the previous day as there was a surge of over 13 per cent at the counter sale.

According to IRCTC, the online ticketing arm of the railways, total 5,55,587 e-tickets were booked on 8 October, while it fell to 5,07,996 on 9 October.

The rush at counters across the country is expected to ease out after November 11, the official added.