Coronavirus: IRCTC starts keeping record of destination address of passengers for contact tracing

New Delhi: The Indian Railways has started keeping records of the destination addresses of all passengers booking their tickets on the IRCTC website to help facilitate contact tracing in case COVID-19 infections are detected among them later.

According to a statement issued by the Railways, the provision to include the destination address has been made on the IRCTC website from May 13.

"With effect from May 13, IRCTC taking destination address of all passengers booking tickets. This will help in contact tracing if required later," Railway spokesperson RD Bajpai said, adding it would now be a permanent feature for the near future.

He also said that keeping in view the coronavirus crisis, it will be mandatory for passengers to fill up their address details for any bookings.

Earlier, in at least 12 cases, passengers travelling in trains were later found to be COVID-19 positive. 

Also, the passengers who are not allowed to travel on trains because of symptoms associated with the novel coronavirus will receive full refund for their tickets, the Indian Railway ha announced.

According to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs, all passengers shall be compulsorily screened, and only asymptomatic passengers shall be allowed to enter/board trains.

"If, during screening, a passenger has very high temperature/symptoms of COVID-19 etc., he shall not be allowed to travel despite having confirmed tickets. In such case full refund shall be provided to the passenger," the order stated.

It said that on a group ticket if one passenger is found unfit to travel and all other passengers on the same PNR also do not want to travel, in that case full refund shall be granted for all passengers.

In case of a group ticket if one passenger is found unfit to travel but the other passengers on the same PNR want to travel, full refund of fare shall be granted to the passenger who was not allowed to travel.

"For all the above cases, TTE certificates as per extant practice shall be issued to the passenger at the entry/checking/screening point itself mentioning number of passengers not travelled due to symptoms of COVID-19 in one or more passengers," it stated.

"Full fare for the part passenger/full who have not travelled shall be refunded by IRCTC in the customer's account," it said.

Around 2.34 lakh passengers have booked tickets for special trains for travel over next seven days, which has generated a revenu of Rs 45.30-crore for the Railways.