11th March 2020

Mr. Piyush Goyal

Minister for Railways

Minister of Railways

Government of India

Rail Bhawan

New Delhi

Hon’ble Minister Sir,

Sub: Request for Nil Cancellation Charges for the bookings made for the foreign tourists with the Indian Railways for the train journeys and with RTDC for the Luxury Trains and cancelled due to Coronavirus

May I draw your kind attention to our letter/email dated 2nd March 2020.

As you know Coronavirus has spread in many countries and movement from various countries like, China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, Japan, Germany, France, Spain,  East and Far countries has badly affected. E-Visa and Normal visa  for nationals of many countries have been suspended by the Bureau of Immigration, Ministry of Home Affairs and tourists are not being allowed to enter India. This also applies to the nationals of other countries residing in these highly affected countries or have travelled to these countries after 1st February 2020.

All this has resulted lot of cancellations being received by many of our members from all the effected countries. Tourism all over the world has been badly affected.  

All the airlines have waived off the cancellation charges on their domestic flights operating in India. Similarly all the hotels have waived off the cancellation charges and all the airlines and hotels are making full refund without any cancellation charges.    

May I request you to kindly consider waiving off the cancellation charges for the Rail Reservations for all bookings made for the foreign travelers and there should be nil cancellation charges for all the rail reservations and full refund should be made due to force majeure clause, which is beyond any one’s control and on humanitarian grounds.

Similarly kindly issue your directives to RTDC to waive off the cancellation charges and full refund be made for the bookings made for the Luxury trains with Nil cancellations charges so that we can refund the same to our foreign clients. 

We need to keep our country’s image high in such a situation and cooperate with foreign counterparts/clients in this difficult time.

Looking forward to your support and cooperation.  

Thanking you and with best regards,   

Sincerely,

President