Railway Ticket Deposit Receipt - My Story of TDR Refund

July 27, 2017
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My Story of TDR Refund

On 18-Jan-2017, I had to file a TDR - Ticket Deposit Receipt because my train was delayed by more than 3 hours. I hopeevery one in India is aware that if the train is delayed by more than three hours you can submit your ticket and claim a refund. I received the email confirming my filing of TDR on 26-Jan-2017.

The Agonizing Wait

Earlier, one could claim a refund even after 3 or 4 hours of departure of the train but not any more as railways have changed the refund rules. I learnt this in 2015 when I had to file a TDR because my train reached the destination after a delay of 8 hours and I missed boarding the onward journey train. So this time, I did not wait for any miracles to happen and as soon as the status of my train changed to delayed by more than 3 hours I immediately proceeded for filing of TDR.

My experience of claiming refund has not been very good with railways both for the online and offline systems but in any case the refund process did not last for 2-3 months. However, this time the story was different the TDR refund has taken more than 6 months.

After filing the TDR, I patiently waited for around 3 months, but even when the status did not change in the month of May I thought of reminding railways. On 27-May-2017 I sent an email to railways that my TDR was pending. However, till date I have not received any response form any of the email ids that I had addressed to, but what I received was a delivery failure notice.

Fortunately, Tejas was trending on twitter and I addressed my issue to railways through their twitter handle. Though received the reply after two days but it was shocking as even after 4 months my TDR was under scrutiny. All tweets are appended below.

Tweets exchanged with Indian Railways

Since I was not convinced with the response I approached them once again. This time around the response was quick, but since then nothing actually moved on ground.



Thereafter, I stopped following up with railways but when I checked the status on 27-Jul-17 the status had changed to
TDR Approved

Hopefully in next few weeks I should receive an SMS from my bank indicating receipt of the TDR refund.

Railways has been doing a lot of good work but things that matter most on ground are not being addressed. 

Why should a refund process take more than 6 months to complete? 

 

Another Painful Incident of TDR Refund

As per TDR rules if the train is late by more than 3 hours full refund is admissible however, in my case railways chose not to refund full amount but deduct INR 270. A number of tweets were sent to railways but unfortunately there was no response.





TDR Refund & Other Issues

We talk of running bullet trains, but the railways back end processes move at a snail's pace. TDR refund is not the only issue, the other issues are failed transactions, non-availability of confirmed tickets, unhygienic train coaches, issue of food quality which has been pointed out by CAG. The core issues that make train journey miserable in India are still bothering us. 

I wish instead of concentrating on providing pizza and burger railways should overhaul the process of ticket booking, cancellation and refunds. I hope railways accords top most priority to these issues.

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