The Railways on Thursday announced that the passengers who aren't allowed to travel on trains because of the symptoms associated with COVID-19 will be issued a full refund.
"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," an order from the Railways said.
"Full fare for the part passenger/full who have not travelled shall be refunded by IRCTC in the customer's account," it added.
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has made it mandatory to screen all the passengers who are travelling and only the asymptomatic ones are allowed to board the trains.
The order further 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, a full refund shall be granted for all passengers. On the other hand, if other passengers want to travel in the same situation, full refund of the passenger's fare who was not allowed to travel will be granted.
"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 a number of passengers not travelled due to symptoms of COVID-19 in one or more passengers," Railways said.
Meanwhile, Railways has also announced that it has started keeping records of the destination address of all passengers booking their tickets on the IRCTC website so that contacts can be traced later if required. The provision 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 that it would be a permanent feature for the near future.