Man’s five-year struggle to get Rs 35 refund on cancelled railway ticket advantages round three lakh IRCTC customers

By PTI

KOTA: A Kota-based man has received his five-year struggle to get a Rs 35 refund from the Railways, serving to within the course of almost 3 lakh individuals who have been in the same scenario.

The Railways has permitted Rs 2.43 crore in refunds to 2.98 lakh IRCTC customers — lots of whom might need introduced a number of tickets, in accordance with an RTI reply acquired by Kota-based engineer Sujeet Swami.

Swami mentioned he filed almost 50 Right to Information purposes and shot off letters to 4 authorities departments in his struggle to get again Rs 35 charged as service tax regardless of cancelling his ticket earlier than the GST regime was carried out.

Swami claimed the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation in its reply to his RTI question mentioned 2.98 lakh customers would get refund of Rs 35 on every ticket amounting to a complete of Rs 2.43 crore.

“My repeated tweets to demand the refund, tagging the PM, Railway minister, Union minister Anurag Thakur, GST Council and the Finance minister played key role in the approval of refund of Rs 35 to 2.98 lakh users,” Swami instructed PTI.

The 30-year-old engineer had booked a railway ticket from his metropolis to New Delhi within the Golden Temple Mail in April, 2017 to undertake a journey on July 2, a day after the brand new GST regime got here into pressure.

However, he had cancelled the ticket priced Rs 765 following which he acquired a refund of Rs 665 with a deduction of Rs 100 as an alternative of Rs 65 towards the cancellation.

He mentioned the additional quantity of Rs 35 was charged to him as service tax despite the fact that he had cancelled the ticket previous to the implementation of Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Swami started his struggle to acquire the refund of Rs 35 by sending RTI queries to the Railway and the Ministry of Finance.

According to an RTI reply, the IRCTC citing the business round quantity 43 of the Ministry of Railways, mentioned for tickets booked earlier than the implementation of GST and cancelled after implementation, service tax charged on the time of reserving shall not be refunded.

Therefore, Rs 100 (Rs 65 as clerical cost and Rs 35 as service tax) was charged towards the cancelled ticket, it mentioned.

However, an RTI reply additional mentioned it was later determined that for tickets booked earlier than July 1, 2017, and cancelled, the entire quantity of service tax charged on the time of reserving shall be refunded, Swami mentioned.

“So, a sum of Rs 35 will be refunded,” the IRCTC had mentioned in its reply to Swami’s RTI question.

I, nevertheless, acquired Rs 33 in my checking account on May 1, 2019 with a deduction of Rs 2 because the rounded off worth of service tax of Rs 35, Swami mentioned.

Swami’s saved on his struggle for the following three years to get again Rs 2 and it lastly yielded end result on Friday final week.

According to Swami, a senior IRCTC official knowledgeable him that the “the Railway Board has approved the refund (of Rs 35) to all the users (2.98 lakhs) as the process to deposit refund is underway and all the passengers would gradually receive their refund”.

Subsequently on the identical day, I additionally acquired a mail from IRCTC relating to the refund of Rs 2 which sought the verification of checking account, he mentioned.

The RTI reply which got here thereafter said 2.98 lakh customers would get refund of Rs 35 on every ticket amounting to complete Rs 2.43 corer, Swami mentioned.

“I had sent bank account detail and received the refund of Rs.2 on Monday,” he mentioned.

“Following the approval of refund of Rs 35 to all users, and adding Rs 100 for my five years of struggle, I have donated Rs 535 to Prime Minister Cares Fund,” Swami mentioned.

The struggle was actually lengthy with round 50 RTIs, letters to the Railways, IRCTC, Finance ministry and Service Tax division however finally I’m glad as all of the customers with me would obtain refund of Rs 35 amounting to over 2.43 crores,” Swami mentioned.