Indian Railways introduces new plan! Now you don’t have to worry about changing your boarding station before catching your train. Indian Railways has planned to introduce an all-new passenger-friendly scheme! Soon passengers will be able to change and manage their boarding station even four hours before the scheduled departure of the train, that is till the time of the chart preparation. This facility will be implemented across the entire Indian Railways network from May 1, according to a recent Dainik Jagran report. According to the existing norms, passengers can change their boarding stations till 24 hours before the departure of the train.
Under the new plan, the Railway Board has made major changes in the ticketing system for the convenience of passengers. The special feature of this plan is that passengers can change boarding station up to two times. Changes in these rules will prove to be a big relief to the passengers. On changing the boarding station, the passenger will not have to pay extra fare, but if the change has been made within 24 hours then the refund will not be available.
For example, if a passenger has booked a ticket for traveling between Gorakhpur and Delhi and later boarded the train from Lucknow by changing the boarding station, the fare between Gorakhpur and Lucknow will not be returned. However if the passenger wants to travel from Gorakhpur instead of Lucknow, after changing the boarding station, the passenger will be able to avail this facility only if the berth in the train is empty. Otherwise, the passenger will not be allowed to travel. In fact, upon a change in boarding, the empty berth can be allocated to another passenger. In order to implement this new system, the Railway Board has directed all the zonal railway offices to faciliate the same.
According to the report, passengers can change their boarding station online. Apart from the official website of IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) as well as the railway ticket counters, there will be facility of changing boarding station on the Railway Inquiry Number ‘139’. For this, the Center for Railway Information System (CRIS) has started the process of updating the ticketing system.