Tag: IRCTC

IRCTC IPO opens for subscription on September 30: All you need to know

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the tourism and catering arm of Indian Railways, plans to raise up to Rs 645 crore through an initial public offering. The IRCTC IPO will open for subscription on September 30, with a price band of Rs 315 to Rs 320 per share. The IRCTC is a central public sector enterprise owned by the government under the administrative control of the Ministry of Railways. After RITES, Rail Vikas Nigam and IRCON International, IRCTC is the fourth entity of the Indian Railways to be listed since 2018. The IPO will close on October 3.

Here are key things you need to know about the IRCTC IPO:

* The IRCTC IPO comprises an offer for sale of 2 crore shares, representing 12.50 percent of total paid-up equity by the Ministry of Railways. There would also be additional employee reservation portion of 1.6 lakh shares, taking the total offer size to 12.6 percent of total paid-up equity.

*  The issue price is fixed in a range of Rs 315 to Rs 320 per share. The retail investors and employees will get shares at a discount of Rs 10 per share to final offer price.

Read: Indian Railways gears up for privatisation, sees need of regulatory body

* The minimum bid lot is 40 equity shares and in multiples of 40 equity shares thereafter.

* IDBI Capital Markets & Securities, SBI Capital Markets and YES Securities (India) are the managers to the IRCTC IPO.

* IRCTC is the only entity authorised by the Indian Railways to provide catering services to railways, online railway tickets and packaged drinking water at railway stations and trains in India, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).

* IRCTC operates one of the most transacted websites (www.irctc.co.in), in the Asia-Pacific region with transaction volume averaging 2.5 to 2.8 crore transactions per month during the 5 months ended August 31.

* Currently, IRCTC operates in 4 business segments, namely, Internet Ticketing, Catering, Packaged Drinking Water under the “Rail Neer” brand, and Travel and Tourism.

* Earlier this year, IRCTC has launched its own payment aggregator system, IRCTC iPay to provide online digital payment option to passengers availing online travel-related services through the IRCTC website.

* IRCTC has also diversified into other businesses, including non-railway catering and services such as e-catering, executive lounges and budget hotels.

* The internet ticketing currently is 12-13 percent of the revenue and has a margin of about 60-65 percent, Mahendra Pratap Mall, chairman and managing director of IRCTC, told CNBC-TV18.

* “Cash flow generated is about Rs 1,500-1,600 crore. As per current distribution, catering is almost 53-54 percent and has a margin of 11-12 percent. Tourism is about 28 percent and has a margin of 10-12 percent,” he added.

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IRCTC’s Tejas Express receives over 2,000 bookings in first two days

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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More than 2,000 passengers have booked tickets in the first IRCTC-run train, Tejas Express, from Lucknow to New Delhi and back, within two days of opening of counters, officials said on Sunday.  The bookings for the Tejas trains – number 82501 from Lucknow to Delhi and 82502 from Delhi to Lucknow — began on Saturday.

As on Sunday evening, while the Tejas Express train from Lucknow to Delhi has 749 bookings, on its return journey it has 1,549 for journeys to be taken till November 20, the officials said.

Most bookings are between October 23 and October 26, just ahead of Diwali.

This is the first train of the Indian Railways that will be fully run by its subsidiary IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) and is the national transporter’s first step towards privatising operations of some trains.

Bringing in private operators to provide world-class passenger amenities was a proposal mooted by the railways in its first 100-day agenda under the Modi 2.0 government as part of its move to hand over certain trains to private players.

Passengers will also, for the first time, have the option of choose combo meals on board — catering charges of Rs 185 for AC chair car and Rs 245 for Executive Chair Car are included in the ticket prices — for the full length of the journey (Lucknow to Delhi).

The maximum charge (Delhi to Lucknow) will be Rs 340 and Rs 385, respectively. Both category passengers will be offered some refreshment right after boarding. They will have two options — Tea/Coffee (pre-mix kit) with cookies (chair car), premium cookies for Executive class.

And option 2 — pre-packaged nimboo pani with cookies (CC); flavoured lassi in lieu of nimboo pani in Executive Class.

For breakfast, passengers can choose from a vegetarian combo of two pieces of vegetable cutlets with poha. The other combo is two pieces of vegetable uttapam with vermicelli and coconut chutney for all.  The other combo includes two pieces of Medu Vada and suji upma and coconut chutney.

A non-vegetarian option is also available which includes masala omelette and sautéd vegetables.

In all these combos, additional cornflakes, sugar sachet and milk will be provided to executive class passengers.

Passengers can also order additional edible items such as branded Mishti dahi/Mango dahi, two pieces brown bread, butter, tomato ketchup, branded fruit juice, Tea/Coffee kit, salt and pepper, mouth freshener.

Just before the end of the journey, passengers will be served light refreshments like small masala samosa/branded cookies with tea/coffee premix; additional muffin/slice of cake for Executive class.

The Tejas Express will be flagged off on October 4 but will begin commercial operations from the next day.

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IRCTC to launch Tejas on Lucknow-Delhi. Six things to know about Tejas

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) will launch its first passenger train called Tejas on Lucknow-Delhi route. The project lays down seeds of privatisation for Indian Railways as this will be the first time such an arrangement has been implemented.

Giving an idea of how the arrangement will work in Tejas, Railway board chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav had recently said that IRCTC will have the right to design the interior, food menu, other services for the passengers of the train, the locomotive, driver, guard and safety maintenance will be from Indian Railways.

Railways has identified two routes for this, Lucknow-Delhi and Mumbai-Ahmedabad. This train will leave Ahmedabad at 06:40 hours and will reach Mumbai at 13:15 hours. In the return direction, the train will leave Mumbai at 15:40 hours and reach Ahmedabad at 22:25 hours. This train will also run 6 days a week, except Thursday.

Here are six things to know about Lucknow-Delhi Tejas

1. This chair car train will operate 6 days a week except for Tuesday and will cover the distance in 6 hours and 15 minutes. It will have one executive class with 56 seats and nine chair cars having a capacity of 78 seats each. The total carrying capacity of the train will be 758 passengers.

2. You will be able to book tickets for this train only on IRCTC website irctc.co.in, its mobile app “Irctc Rail Connect” and online travel portals. You will not be able to book its tickets at railway reservation counters. The advance reservation period will be of 60 days.

3. The train will have different fares for lean, busy and festive seasons. February, March and August months of the calendar year will form the lean season. There will be no tatkal quota or premium tatkal quota in these trains. There will be only general quota and foreign tourist quota. Foreign tourist quota of 5 seats in executive class and 50 seats in chair car will be available for foreign tourists.

4. Free-of-cost travel insurance of Rs 25 lakh will be provided to all passengers. Executive lounge facility at New Delhi railway station may also be provided at a reduced rate.

5. Onboard infotainment services will be available in IRCTC trains to the passengers. Sale of merchandise good onboard may also take place. The coach will also be provided with RO water filter in addition to the packaged drinking water bottle. IRCTC is also planning to include regional dishes on the menu.

6. IRCTC is planning to extend the facility of collecting passengers’ baggage from their homes and deliver to them in the train on their seats and then again from their seats to their destination stay point on payment. Modalities for the same are being worked out with vendors for this purpose. Passengers will be able to travel without worrying about their luggage. Luggage will be insured.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Indian Railways gears up for privatisation, sees need of regulatory body

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Indian Railways sees the need for a regulator to cap fares, allot routes and ensure strict adherence to safety standards as the state-owned organisation is getting ready for privatisation.

“Private operators will be introduced…While this won’t happen immediately, this is the right time to initiate the process (of privatisation),” Vinod Kumar Yadav, chairman of Indian Railway Board, told reporters in a press interaction.

The state-owned firm is working on creating a large number of dedicated passenger and freight corridors over the next 5-10 years and once such a system is put into place, private operators will be introduced, Kumar said.

Giving an example of the Tejas Express on Mumbai-Ahmedabad and Delhi-Lucknow routes, Yadav said that while the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp (IRCTC) will have the right to design the interior, food menu, other services for the passengers of the train, the Indian Railways will provide the locomotive, driver, guard and safety maintenance.

Talking about dedicated corridors, Yadav said that the dedicated passenger corridor on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah will be made to be fit for 160 km/hr but freight will be allowed to contribute up to 10 percent to its traffic.

The public sector unit has also planned to improve the speed potential of its network, of which currently only a little over 15 percent is fit for 130 km per hour.

“There are sections which will be updated to 130 km per hour. For speed up to 160 km per hour change in signalling and fencing across the track will be needed and therefore some capex will be required,” Yadav added. Currently, 0.15 percent of Indian Railways network is eligible for 160 km per hour.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Indian Railways may offer up to 25% discount on Shatabdi, Tejas trains, says report

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian Railways may offer up to 25 percent discounts on chair car and executive class seats in trains which has low occupancy and also in Shatabdi, Tejas, intercity and double-decker trains, The Times of India reported Wednesday, adding that the decision to offer the discount has been left to the principal chief commercial managers of each railway zone.

Discount offered on the train tickets will be given on the base fare and additional charges like the goods and services tax (GST), reservation fee, superfast tariff and others will be charged separately, the report added.

“Trains with monthly occupancy of less than 50 percent in the previous year are eligible for the discount,” a circular issued by the railway board said, adding that such trains with low occupancy numbers will be identified by September 30.

The circular has asked the zonal managers to determine competitive fares as a criteria while deciding discounted prices and the ministry has given permission to offer discounted fares on all parts of the journey, be it the first leg, intermediate sections or the last part, the Times of India report added.

Giving full freedom to zonal officials, the railways has said that the discount can be offered yearly, half-yearly, seasonally or during weekends. Once the scheme is in place, no other discounts such as graded discount in Shatabdi Express trains or flexi-fare will be applicable, the circular read.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

IRCTC files draft papers with Sebi for Rs 600 crore IPO

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has filed draft papers with markets regulator Sebi for its initial public offer (IPO). As many as 2 crore equity shares of face value of Rs 10 each would be offloaded through an offer for sale by the government. According to market sources, the IRCTC IPO would be worth about Rs 500-600 crore.

IRCTC is the tourism and catering arm of Indian Railways.

IDBI Capital Markets & Securities, SBI Capital Markets and YES Securities (India) are the managers to the IRCTC IPO.

IRCTC is the only entity authorised by the Indian railways to provide catering services to railways, online railway tickets and packaged drinking water at railway stations and trains in India, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP).

The CPSE has also diversified into other business segments like e-catering, executive lounges and budget hotels.

IRCTC operates one of the most transacted websites,‘www.irctc.co.in’, in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region.

The company’s shares are proposed to be listed on BSE and NSE.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

‘Clean your browsing history’: IRCTC to user complaining of obscene ads

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC)made an epic comeback to a user of its official ticket booking application who complained of obscene advertisements on the app.

The IRCTC app user, named Anand Kumar, tweeted to IRCTC’s official account, tagging Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, that he was seeing obscene ads on the IRCTC app and even attached screenshots of the advertisements visible on his mobile screen.

“Obscene and vulgar ads are very frequently appearing on the IRCTC ticket booking app. This is very embarrassing and irritating @RailMinIndia @IRCTCofficial @PiyushGoyalOffc kindly look into it,” he tweeted.

The IRCTC’s official customer support account, Indian Railways Seva, advised Kumar to first clear his own browsing history.

“IRCTC uses Googles ad serving tool ADX for serving ads.These ads uses cookies to target the user. Based on user history and browsing behaviour ads are shown. Pl clean and delete all browser cookies and history to avoid such ads. – IRCTC Official.”

As soon as the IRCTC responded on the micro-blogging site, social media was flooded with hilarious memes and people quickly trolled the troller.

Twitter user named Amit Gadre wrote, “IRCTC at its best reply…. Most polite punch. Thanks.”

Megha Kaveri wrote: “When IRCTC burns you like there is no tomorrow.”

However, web developer named Gagandeep S. Luthra said that the IRCTC’s HTML code shows Javascript loaded from a push notification platform, which is not strictly monitored and one can send any link.

“A look at the irctc html code shows Javascript Loaded from http://izooto.com, which is a Push Notification Platform. Push Notifications are not strictly monitored and one can send any vulgar link endlessly using that. I was surprised to see its use on irctc,” Luthra tweeted, attaching the screenshot of the HTML codes.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

Find travelling by train challenging? Here are 6 measures by Indian Railways that make it easy

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Indian Railways, in order to simplify the reservation system and help passengers have a hassle-free journey, has introduced some measures over the last few years. If you are someone, who has always found travelling by train challenging, these measures are what you need.

Here are the steps taken by the Indian Railways that make travelling  by train much easier:

• The Indian Railways has made the reservation charts public, which helps the passengers book a vacant berth after the preparation of charts. The first chart is made public four hours before the departure while the second is made public half an hour before the departure. The information is available on both, IRCTC web as well as the mobile app.
• A waitlist prediction tool was introduced, allowing the passengers to check the probability of their waitlisted or RAC ticket getting confirmed. The feature uses historical data to arrive at a percentage probability of the ticket getting confirmed.
• ‘Vikalp Scheme’ by the Indian Railways provides accommodation to a waitlisted passenger in an alternate train.
• The Indian Railways has provided tablet devices called Hand-Held Terminals (HHTs) to TTEs which allows them to update the real-time occupancy status of a running train. The device works through GPRS.
• It has come up with the concept of linking PNRs recently where passengers can link two PNRs for connecting train journey – for PRS counter tickets and IRCTC e-tickets or a combination of both. The option to link PNRs is given to the passenger while booking the ticket. If the passenger misses the train, the fare for the portion travelled is retained and the refund amount is granted to him/her.
• It has increased the monthly reservation limit of 6 train tickets per user to 12 tickets in a month. However, to make use of this facility, Aadhaar verification is a must.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow

20 passengers of Delhi-Bhubaneshwar Rajdhani taken ill after eating rail food

KV Prasad Jun 13, 2022, 06:35 AM IST (Published)

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Around 20 passengers on board the Delhi-Bhubaneswar Rajdhani were Sunday taken ill after eating meals served by railways, sources said.

A railway spokesperson said doctors at Gomoh station attended to those taken ill and all of them are stable.

A doctor at Bokaro also attended to the passengers and as a precaution, he is now travelling in the train and checking passengers.

“At Tatanagar also doctors will attend. All passengers are well. No one is detrained. Pantry car is also being checked and food samples are collected to investigate the quality of food,” the spokesperson said.

The food sample has also been collected by the IRCTC.

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KV Prasad Journo follow politics, process in Parliament and US Congress. Former Congressional APSA-Fulbright Fellow