Railways limits validity of unreserved tickets for short distances to 3 hours

A day ahead of the Railway Budget, the Railways today announced the decision to limit the validity of an unreserved train ticket for distances up to 199 km to three hours and withdrawal of return booking facility for such travel, beginning next month.

An unreserved train ticket for travelling up to 199 km distance will no longer be valid after three hours of purchase of the ticket as Railways has formulated a new rule to be effective from 1 March 2016, the Lok Sabha was informed today.

According to the new rule, the journey on an unreserved tickets for distances up to 199 km has to be started from the originating station within three hours of the issue of tickets or up to the departure of first train for the destination, whichever is later, minister of state for railways Manoj Sinha said in a written reply.

He said the return journey facility for distance up to 199 km for unreserved tickets has also been withdrawn.

Sinha said the facility for issuing paperless platform tickets through mobile phones is already available on 29 stations.