[Resolved]  Indian Railways — Suffocated inside AC Compartment

Address:

Bangalore, Karnataka

I was travelling with my wife in 2835, Hatia - Yesvantpur Superfast Express on last Tuesday (22-Jun-2010) in coach number B3. From the beginning of the journey there was no water supply in the toilets. To add on top of it, suddenly on the day 1 of the journey, sometime after midnight the ACs stopped working in our coach. Initially we didn't realized, however during early morning (of day 2) all passengers started complaining. Since it's summer and there used to be absolutely no air ventilation in the AC compartments, it started suffocating inside. We kept complaining to the attendant, to the Ticket Checker and whomever it was possible, but everything went in vein. We kept asking for the complaint book but no one availed it to us (actually it was no where there). Finally during 7:3o in the evening the attendant informed us that one of the compressors has failed because the compartment was manufactured during 1997 and it cannot take the load. He kept postponing a fix for this issue and finally with utter nuisance we reached Yesvantpur. It was nothing but a horrendous journey (courtesy our great Indian Railway), which I pray no one should ever have in there life. I've the following questions:

1) How can a department like Indian Railway be such irresponsible to give a green flag to such long distance train, without absolutely not checking the technical fitness of all compartments?

2) Most of the passengers who travel in this particular train are patients (because of well connectivity with Vellore). What if someone would have lost there life inside because of the suffocation? Who should have been held responsible for that?

3) We've paid money for travelling in an AC compartment. Will Indian Railway refund the money because we faced the trouble?