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Mukesh Ranjan
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, August 25
The Indian Railways has decided to offer a travel insurance cover of upto Rs 10 lakh to its passengers from August 31, a step coming in line with a similar facility available to air travelers. A premium of 92 paise per ticket would be charged for the service.
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a railway subsidiary, has assigned the task to three private firms: Shriram General Insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance and Royal Sundaram General Insurance.
The insurers, said sources, were selected through an open bidding from among 17 companies, which participated in the process.
The cover, however, would not be applicable for children up to 5 years of age and foreign citizens, he said. “It would only be meant for passengers holding tickets such as confirmed, RAC and wait-listed ones,” said the official.
Apart from rail accidents, it would also take care of terrorist attacks, riots, robbery and accidental fall of a passenger from a train.
At first, insurance would be available only to those travellers who buy tickets for reserved seats for their single travel, the official said. But the scheme would later be extended to ‘season ticket travellers’ where a premium of Rs 200-300 would be charged. Even passengers travelling with unreserved tickets would be included at a later stage.
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