Partial Refund For RAC Passengers Travelling In Half Berth? Here’s What The Parliamentary Committee Suggests

If you’ve ever travelled on an RAC ticket, you already know this feeling: you’ve paid the full price, you’ve shown up like every other passenger, but the journey comes with an unspoken compromise of half a berth, shared space, and a lot less comfort than what the fare suggests. Now, that frustration has finally reached Parliament.

PAC Recommends Partial Refund For RAC Tickets

A Parliamentary panel has flagged the practice of charging full fare from RAC passengers who do not get a full berth as unfair, and has asked the Railways Ministry to work out a system for partial refunds.

The recommendation comes from the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) in its report titled “Punctuality and Travel Time in Train Operations in Indian Railways”, tabled in Parliament on February 4. The committee’s message specifies that if a passenger continues in the RAC category even after chart preparation and travels without a proper berth, charging the entire fare is “not justified.”

RAC, or Reservation Against Cancellation, is a familiar middle ground in Indian Railways’ booking system. It guarantees that you can board the train, but it does not guarantee a full berth. In most cases, two RAC passengers are expected to share one berth, turning what should be a sleeper journey into a cramped arrangement, especially on long overnight routes.

Yet, the fare charged is the same as that of a confirmed berth passenger. That mismatch of full payment and partial facility is what the PAC has now formally questioned.

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What The Committee Wants Changed

The PAC has urged the Ministry of Railways to devise a mechanism to refund a portion of the fare to passengers who remain in RAC status and do not receive a full berth during their travel.

In other words, if the Railways cannot provide the service that the fare implies, the passenger should not bear the entire cost. The committee has also asked the Ministry to spell out how it intends to act on this recommendation. At present, the refund structure offers no comfort to passengers who travel in RAC without a berth upgrade.

Railways Tightens RAC Restrictions On Premium Trains 

According to IRCTC rules, no refund is admissible on RAC e-tickets if the ticket is not cancelled or if a TDR is not filed online at least 30 minutes before departure. The system does not recognise the difference between a full berth journey and an RAC journey once the passenger has boarded.

So a traveller can pay full fare, complete the journey on half a berth, and still receive nothing back.

This debate also comes at a time when the Railways have been revising RAC-related rules. Beginning this year, boarding has been restricted for RAC passengers on select premium services. 

RAC travel has been fully disallowed on 13 trains, including the Howrah-Kamakhya-Howrah Vande Bharat Sleeper Express, and multiple Amrit Bharat Express routes.

Also Read: Fact Check: Did India Conduct Trial Run Of Its First Hydrogen-Operated Vande Bharat Train?

For millions of Indians, RAC is not an exception, it is routine. And the PAC’s recommendation signals something passengers have argued for years, that comfort cannot be treated as optional when the fare is not. Whether the Railways Ministry turns this into policy is still uncertain. But the question is now officially on the table: If the berth is only half, should the fare really be full?

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