Now Avail Zero Cancellation Charge If Connecting Train Gets Delayed: Indian Railways To Issue Linked PNRs Like Airlines

A senior official of Indian Railways on Friday (22 February) said that the Railways is set to introduce linked PNRs for connecting journeys to allow passengers to cancel their onward journey without any cancellation fee if there is a delay in the first leg, The Hindu reports.

The facility is expected to begin from April and would benefit passengers who have booked continuous trains for onward journeys and get delayed due to various reasons.

“In case of linked PNRs, if a rail passenger misses connecting train owing to late running of the train by which he had been travelling, the fare for untraveled portion shall be refunded, without levying any cancellation or clerkage charge,” PTI quotes the Railway Board order.

Passengers, however, would need to surrender their ticket for such a refund within the three hours of the initial arrival of the first train. The facility would be available for both counter ticket and e-ticket holders as well as a combination of both. The passengers' names on both the destination station in the main train and the PNRs need to be the same or in a defined cluster as the boarding station of the connecting train.

“This will greatly help passengers as they will not be in fear of losing money if they miss their connecting train. There were instances that the non-linking of PNRs resulted in problems for passengers during cancellation of tickets,” a senior official said.

Passengers using air travel are also provided with similar PNR for their onward journey when travelling with the same airline.