DNA: New Delhi: Monday, April
17, 2017.
The rail
travel insurance scheme, being operated by the Indian Railway Catering and
Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) along with three private insurance firms, is for
the moment a tidy affair for the railways. Out of a little under 11 crore rail
passengers who were eligible for the insurance, only a minuscule number of 35
passengers applied for compensation.
According to
IRCTC, a total of 3,64,06,918 passengers (3.64 crore) had voluntarily opted for
this travel insurance scheme between September 1 and December 9 by paying a
premium of 92 paise. From December 10, the Railway Ministry, as part of its
plans to encourage cashless and digital transactions, made the scheme free for
all passengers who managed to book a confirmed ticket on the IRCTC website.
IRCTC sees
about 6.5 lakh confirmed tickets booked on its site every day, and for the 111
days between December 10 and March 31, the total number of confirmed passengers
added up to 7.21 crores. Of them, as per numbers made available to DNA by
IRCTC, a total of seven claims were upheld, and the payout in these seven
claims added to Rs 61,95, 217. Four claims have been rejected so far, IRCTC
said in reply to an RTI plea filed by DNA.
The four
rejections included the name of Rampravesh Singh, one of the 146 passengers who
died on November 20 last year when the 19321
Indore-Patna Express derailed at Pukhrayan near Kanpur. Usha Sharma, who was
injured in the Kanpur accident, saw her claim being rejected since she too,
like Singh, had boarded the train from a station before the one mandated for
boarding as per her ticket.
Passenger
Yadava Reddy had his claim rejected as he was injured when he fell while on an
escalator after he had alighted from his train on January 17. Mohammad Sayed,
who died on December 20, was also denied compensation as his post-mortem report
showed that he died of ‘acute coronary insufficiency’ and not any
railway-related incident, IRCTC said in its RTI reply.
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