Indian Railways’ OTP-based ticket refund system can save you from being duped by false booking agents

Indian Railways have come up with a fool-proof system to prevent passengers from being duped by unauthorised booking agents in the event of ticket cancellation.
Usually, train passengers seek the services of travel agents for booking their tickets, and then end up cancelling the tickets or can’t travel for being unable to get confirmed seats. However, passengers can now get a text message directly from IRCTC about the total refund amount the booking agent will receive on their behalf against completely waitlisted, dropped ticket, or cancelled ticket. In this way, passengers will be able to check whether or not they are being cheated by the ticket booking agency.

In case of booking tickets for a large group of passengers, the customers should furnish the mobile number of any one passenger to the IRCTC agent.


Reportedly, to activate this service, the passenger has to provide the booking number to the IRCTC authorised agent while booking the e-ticket. Therefore, if the ticket booked via the authorised IRCTC agent gets cancelled by the passenger, IRCTC will SMS a one-time-password (OTP) to the passenger’s mobile number. Passengers will also receive a message mentioning the refund amount. The passenger will have to share the OTP with the booking agent who will in turn claim the refund amount.

Given the fact that many tickets get dropped on the waiting list, or cancelled during the festive rush, many passengers will welcome this transparent move which guarantees that they will get the refund amount without any discrepancy.