When I Did Not Get My Refund From Railways, the Govt’s Grievance Redressal Mechanism Worked!

Most of us, at some point in our lives, have felt helpless in front of the mammoth bureaucratic system of India and found ourselves at sea while dealing with it. Many a times, we didn’t know whom to contact to get our issues resolved, and on few occasions, even if we somehow got hold of the person, the grievance still remained unresolved due to different reasons. If you have also been in such a situation and felt helpless, I have found a way out for you. Here is my story.

I booked train tickets for my parents amounting to about Rs. 3,300 for Mumbai.

Picture for representation only. Source: Flickr

The train was scheduled to depart from my hometown Begusarai on January 6, 2017, at 9:45 am, but due to some reason, it got delayed for more than three hours. My parents got fed up of waiting and instructed me to cancel the ticket. I cancelled the ticket (1:39 pm) just before train was about to depart (01:45 pm) from Begusarai.

Also read: Indian Railways Is Set to Reduce Wastage and Save Crores Through Recycled Water

Few days later, I came to know through an email from IRCTC that Indian Railways had rejected my claim for refund as per extant rule. I clearly felt that it was unfair as the train was delayed for more than three hours and I cancelled the  ticket before the actual departure of the train. These two reasons were suffice, in my opinion, for Indian Railways to refund me my money, but as per the mail, they decided not to.

Being social media savvy, I tweeted the issue to IRCTC and to be fair to them, I got a response. But that was not satisfactory. Even after repeated failures, I decided to pursue the matter.

Being in government service myself, I knew that, as per directions of PMO, a lot of importance is given in departments to address public grievances. Knowing this, I lodged my grievance on pgportal.gov.in and after a few weeks received yet another mail from IRCTC. This time it was to say that money has been received from Indian Railways and it would be refunded to me.

This is not a one-time magic. I had earlier used pgportal.gov.in to lodge my grievance against MTNL and it was swiftly resolved too.

Before lodging a grievance, I would suggest that you may, at first, use your regular approach to get it resolved. If you have exhausted all your options and your grievance against Central government departments is still not resolved, try pgportal.gov.in. I am sure your grievances, if genuine, would be resolved.

Find the website here.

Before lodging a complaint, please go through this link to know what the procedure is and what kind of grievances can be lodged.

Similar grievance redressal mechanism must be existing in state governments too. Find it and use it to get your problems resolved. Government officials are there to resolve your issues but sometimes your problems don’t reach them so your issues remain unresolved. Pgportal.gov.in is your gateway to let government officials listen to your unresolved issues and, believe me, they are there to serve you.

Featured image source: Flickr

(Written by Chandan Kumar)

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