The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), under the Ministry of Railways, provides the customers with booked tickets with a option to change the boarding point of train before starting the journey. IRCTC, which is the online ticketing arm of the Indian Railways, enables users to book train tickets online through its mobile application and website. The booking options include wait-listed, reservation against cancellation (RAC) and confirmed tickets. (Also Read: IRCTC Offers Concession To Select Categories Of Passengers. Here’s How To Avail It)

Here’s how to change the boarding point of the train on IRCTC ahead of a journey:

A passenger who has booked e-tickets can change his/her boarding station online before 24 hours of the scheduled departure of the train, according to IRCTC’s portal, irctc.co.in.

In case a passenger has changed the boarding point he will lose all the rights to board the train from the original boarding point. If found travelling without any proper authority to travel, passenger will have to pay fare with penalty between original boarding point to changed boarding point, according to the IRCTC website.

 

Boarding point change is allowed only once and boarding station can be changed before 24 hours of the scheduled departure of train, according to IRCTC.

Boarding point change is not allowed if the ticket is seized and boarding point change is not allowed for the PNRs with VIKALP option.

Online boarding point change is not allowed for I-Ticket and boarding point change is not allowed for current booking ticket.

An altercation between Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik and Odisha BJP vice-president Baijayant Panda touched a new low on Sunday, with the latter claiming that there are occasions when his former party chief “cries like a schoolboy”.

Mr Panda said this to news agency ANI while trashing Mr Patnaik’s claims that he had lobbied with the centre to get railway lines laid to his mining companies rather than Kendrapara district. “Utter rubbish. I am disappointed that Naveen (Patnaik) has reduced himself to making wild, unsubstantiated allegations. Sometimes he cries like a schoolboy, sometimes he says I’m complaining about his health, sometimes he says I’m coveting his chair,” he said.

The BJP leader is contesting the Lok Sabha elections from Kendrapara, which will vote on April 28. He will face-off against the Biju Janata Dal’s Anubhav Mohanty.

The Odisha Chief Minister had made the allegation against Mr Panda while describing the sequence of events that led to him quitting the Biju Janata Dal for the BJP. “I found that Kendrapara was the only district on the coast where the railways were hardly developed. That was when a former Railways Minister laughed, saying that my parliamentarian (Baijayant Panda) was only concerned about providing rail links to his mining companies. This shocked me,” he said.

Mr Panda claimed that the people of Kendrapara know how much he had “slogged” to get the railway project started. “For 18 years, Naveen Patnaik did not find anything dubious about me. There were close relations between his family and mine for nine decades, but none of these allegations came up until last year,” ANI quoted him as saying.

He also questioned the Naveen Patnaik government’s claims that most development projects were successfully completed. “I had conducted a survey during my first tenure. While 8,700 permanent houses were constructed in Kendrapara on paper, an audit found only 160. Over 8,500 remained on paper,” the BJP leader said.

The Chief Minister had earlier posted an exercise video on social media to dispel rumours allegedly spread by Mr Panda that all was not well with his health.

The dead body of a young girl, without clothes, was found near a railway track in the town of Bathinda in Punjab, the police said on Wednesday.

The body was beheaded and thrown under a bridge near the railway track in Bathinda’s Sheesh Mahal Colony, the police said.

“We have started the investigation. The case will be solved soon,” police officer Tarjinder Singh said.

The police have registered a case and started the investigation.

Two Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)  engineers, arrested after the foot overbridge collapse near Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) railway station, have moved separate bail pleas before a Mumbai sessions court claiming the case against them is “false and concocted”.

The engineers, Anil Patil and S F Kakulte, were working with the bridges department of the BMC. They were both arrested days after the 40-year-old bridge, connecting the area near the Times of India building with the CSMT railway station in south Mumbai, collapsed on March 14, killing six people.

Earlier, their bail pleas had been rejected by the Metropolitan Magistrate court.

In their fresh applications moved before additional sessions judge MS Azmi Monday, the two engineers claimed they have been “falsely implicated” in the case and have nothing to do with the said offence.

The allegation against them is “false and concocted” and there is nothing on record to involve them in the crime directly or indirectly, they said.

The accused claimed that even admitting that they had not done their job properly, in the worst case scenario it can merely be dereliction of duty and not the Indian Penal Cod sections applied in the case.

In its reply filed before the court Tuesday, the police said the engineers were not present on the spot during the structural audit of the bridge even for a single day. It is mandatory to carry out the inspection of such bridges before and after the monsoon, but the accused never did so, the police said.

Their bail applications will come up for hearing Thursday, public prosecutor Mangesh Arote said.

Besides the engioneers, police have also arrested structural auditor Neeraj Kumar Desai in connection with the incident.

Neeraj Desai, who worked with a private firm, had allegedly given clearance for continued use of the ill-fated bridge after a structural audit.

A preliminary report into the collapse submitted by the BMC had said the structural audit of the FOB was not carried out properly.

 

Lal Mani Das raises his voice above the morning din outside a railway station in Patna to make an appeal: Vote for a strong democracy.

The 45-year-old from Bihar is not a vote-seeking politician or a government election agent in the world’s biggest election that began on Thursday.

Instead he is an ordinary snack-hawker with a bicycle on a mission to exhort people to vote — and with their heads — during the almost six-week polling period lasting until May 19.

“I felt a strong urge to do something about how people waste their votes by either electing wrong candidates or not voting at all,” Mr Das told news agency AFP as he cycled along a chaotic road with banners festooning his bike and body.

The champion for democracy juggles between his evening job of selling traditional snacks and his “Cycle Jagrukta Yatra” (“Cycle Awareness Journey”) mission.

With thousands of candidates competing for the 543 seats in the lower house of parliament from 900 million voters, he is concerned about the calibre of those running.

“Voting in India is either personality or party driven. No one ever bothers to vote for a candidate on merit, like how honest he is or if he is a criminal,” said Mr Das.

He engages with random members of the public and his customers alike, explaining to them the importance of exercising their democratic right to cast a ballot.

Mr Das said he spent Rs. 10,000 out of his own pocket that he had earmarked for his four children’s education to print thousands of flyers with his vision of India.

But he rejects taunts from friends and family that he is an eccentric who has squandered his kids’ future, and argues that the money is also an investment in their lives.

Despite being a vibrant democracy, and the largest on the planet, critics point to the Indian system’s many imperfections.

This includes the sometimes opaque selection process for candidates to parties bribing voters with cash, liquor and other freebies — or resorting to violence.

Mr Das says his mission is to train people to screen each candidate carefully.

For this he has drafted a checklist — which he wears — of 10 points to look out for in a candidate, including their criminal past, honesty and spending habits.

If candidates do not pass muster then he has a suggestion: Vote “NOTA” — none of the above — something that six million people did at the 2014 election, or 1.1 percent of votes cast.

Mr Das said it also pains him to see politicians fight inside parliament — the “temple of democracy,” he calls it — instead of tackling matters of public concern.

“Should we elect a parliamentarian who goes to Delhi to fight instead of discussing our problems?” he tells a crowd of curious onlookers.

The outgoing parliament spent 40 percent less time in session compared to previous terms, mostly due to frequent adjournments following ruckuses between MPs.

Forty-six bills failed to clear the house, while 133 bills were passed, many without parliamentary discussion.

One-third of the parliamentarians elected in 2014 had criminal charges against them, including seven charged with murder.

And he feels sour about the estimated 100 million people working away from their homes who are unable to vote because they have to be physically present in their registered hometown to cast their ballot.

If nothing works, he might himself jump into the election fray someday to improve the lot of India’s 1.3 billion people.

“If people want me to contest the elections, I would be more than happy,” said Mr Das, adding his only wish is to see India become a real democracy

Four railway employees have been suspended after train tickets with photographs of Prime Minister Narenda Modi were sold to passengers at Uttar Pradesh’s Barabanki railway station.

The Election Commission had sought a report over poll code violation from the district magistrate reacting to the media reports that tickets carrying PM Modi’s photo and details of government schemes were in circulation at the railway station.

“The old roll was used by mistake on April 13. Two rail employees have been suspended and further probe is on,” Assistant District Magistrate Sandeep Kumar Gupta told news agency ANI.

Reservation supervisor Santosh Kumar railway employee, Chitra Kumari, are among the four employees who have been suspended for violation of moral code of conduct, which came into effect on March 10 when the Election Commission announced the poll dates.

Mohammed Shabbar Rizvi, one of the passengers, who was issued a ticket with PM’s photo earlier told NDTV that when he tried to complain to the supervisor, he was “rebuked.”

“When I saw the ticket I realised it had the PM’s photo on it.I tried to complain to the supervisor but I was rebuked and asked to leave. As a last resort I called up some people in the media,” Mr Rizvi said. He had gone to the Barabanki railway station to book a ticket from Barabanki to Varanasi on the Ganga Satluj Express.

Mr Rizvi claimed other passengers who were sold the same tickets protested too. A supervisor at the booking office had also told the media that a paper roll with PM Modi’s photo was inserted into the printing machine “by mistake’.

Earlier, the railways had announced it would withdraw the tickets after a Trinamool delegation approached the Election Commission of India accusing the BJP of violating the poll code.

Days after that, social media users reported that tea was being served on a Shatabdi train in paper cups with PM Modi’s campaign line, “Main Bhi Chowkidar (I’m also watchman)”, printed on them.

After a photo of tea served in a “Main Bhi Chowkidar” cup went viral on social media, the railways said it had withdrawn the glasses and penalised the contractor. The railways fined the contractor Rs. 1 lakh, according to a statement.

Union Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal on Friday took a jibe at the Congress party and its president Rahul Gandhi for talking of a “surgical strike” on poverty. The Union Minister said that he has been listening to this from the Gandhi family since he (Goyal) was seven years old.

“I was only seven years old when his grandmother (Indira Gandhi) had said the same thing. I was 20 years old when his father (Rajiv Gandhi) said — I send one rupee and only 15 paise reach the poor people,” Mr Goyal said while talking to reporters.

“I was 40 years old in 2004 when his mother (Sonia Gandhi) and he himself said — Congress Kaa Haath Garibon Ke Saath.” Now I am 54 years old and I am still hearing the same thing which I heard when I was 7 years old,” the Union Minister said.

“Rahul should answer why his family allowed poverty to stay for 30 years,” Mr Goyal said while asserting that the Congress is a party of lies and deceit. “People will do a surgical strike on the Congress and the DMK,” the Union Minister said.

He also demanded answers from Mr Gandhi over the scams during UPA’s tenure and the National Herald case.

“First he should answer the corruption of Rs. 12 lakh crore. Why he cheated India by taking over shares of the National Herald for free,” Mr Goyal said.

Accusing Mr Gandhi of insulting the engineers involved in the manufacturing of T18 train, he said: “Rahul does not want India to develop trains. I don’t know if he wants to import trains from Italy rather than getting it manufactured in Chennai.”

Commenting on the recent judgement of the Supreme Court on Rafale, he said, “The argument in the SC was not on the merit of the case. We are happy that this controversy will be put to rest once and for all.”

Taking a dig at Mr Gandhi and former Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s son Karti, he said, “I would like to say that the unemployed persons who did not get a job are Rahul Gandhi and son of P Chidambaram, Karti Chidambaram, because they are so used to corruption.”

Mr Goyal also thanked the actor-turned-politician Rajnikanth for welcoming the BJP’s initiative of inter-linking the rivers.

“I would like to thank Rajnikanth for welcoming the interlinking of rivers. This has been a long pending demand of Rajnikanth for the welfare of people of Tamil Nadu,” he said.

All 39 seats in the state will go to polls in a single phase on April 18. The results will be announced on May 23.

RRBs have extended the last date for online registration for Ministerial and Isolated category post. RRBs had announced 1665 vacancies for Ministerial and Isolated category posts. Earlier the last date to register for this recruitment was April 7 but RRBs have decided to extend the last date for the online registration by another 15 days.

Candidates who are eligible for the post can now register for the recruitment till April 22, 2019. Those who successfully register will be allowed to pay application fee through online mode till April 28, 2019. The last date to pay application fee using SBI challan or Post office challan is April 26, 2019 till 1:00 pm. After payment of application fee, candidates will be allowed to complete the application process by April 30, 2019.

A notice released on RRB Bhopal website says, “It has come to notice that the candidates are filling up higher educational qualification as a result of which posts having lower educational qualification are not being displayed in the post preferences online application format.”

RRBs have requested the candidates to fill minimum required qualification in the designated field instead of the highest qualification they hold, so that they are shown all post options available.

The notice reads, “The candidates are informed that each post notified against CEN-03/2019 is having specific minimum educational qualification as mentioned in Post Parameters Table enclosed as Annexure- A in the CEN. The candidates are advised to peruse carefully the Post Parameters Table and fill up the prescribed minimum educational qualification or combination of qualifications as clearly mentioned in the Post Parameters Table

Suburban train services on the Central Railway (CR) near Mumbai were briefly disrupted on Thursday morning as some women passengers held a ‘rail roko’ protest at Diva station after they failed to enter into the crowded compartments of the local train, an official said.

The incident took place around 7 am when a fast local train heading to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) reached Diva station.

“Some women commuters were waiting on the platform to board the local train. However, when it arrived, they could not enter the compartment as some women were standing at the doors, blocking the entry of others,” the official said.

“Some women, who could not board the local, asked the motorman to stop the train and jumped onto the tracks to stage a ‘rail roko’, which disrupted the services for a few minutes,” he added.

After the security personnel intervened, the women gave up the protest and the train proceeded.

RRBs have extended the last date for bank account details correction. Candidates who appeared in the Group D CBT which was held from September 2018 to December 2018 and have not received the fee refund in their account yet can submit their bank account details till April 10, 2019. April 10 is the last date to submit bank account details and RRBs would not provide any further extension.

The recruitment boards had provided the facility to submit bank account details to Group D candidates from March 22 to March 28, 2019. However, a large number of candidates still failed to submit the desired details or submitted wrong details.

“Hence, RRBs as a special case have decided to extend the last date for furnishing / correcting the Bank account details till 10-04-19 beyond which candidates will not be able to modify / provide the Bank account details and RRBs shall not be responsible for the failure of refund transaction.”

Candidates who had appeared for the Group D CBT will receive a refund on the exam fees deposited by them during registration process. While candidates belonging to reserved categories will receive a total refund, those belonging to general category will receive a part of it.

RRBs announced the Group D CBT result on March 4, 2019. More than 1.17 crore candidates had appeared in the CBT conducted for about 62,000 Group D vacancies.