>
i n d ia n R A I L W A y s
Internet Ticketing Project To make rail ticket booking a hassle free affair for the public, IRCTC started Internet Ticketing Reservation Project. The spirit behind the project was to dissuade the customers from going to Railway Resevation Counters instead to take the Passenger Reservation System to the customers. Sanjay Aggarwal Introduction
Internet Ticketing
Indian Railway has set up a public sector company, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC), owned by the Ministry of Railways. IRCTC launched its website http://www.irctc.co.in on 3rd August, 2002 for the purpose of railway ticket booking through Internet. Since its inception it has emerged as one of the largest online payment Internet site in India with annual growth of more than 300 percent. On an average more than 75,000 tickets are sold through IRCTC’s website in a day. IRCTC provides tickets to the public in the comforts of their home/residence instead of visiting the ‘Railway Reservation Centres’ for booking. The delivery of tickets is made either through the courier or a person can himself take the print out for travelling. By doing this, IRCTC is not only saving the time of the public but also saving their cost of travelling to these centres. For Railways it is saving on their infrastructure like buildings, air-conditioning, electricity, furniture, staff etc. The spirit behind the project was that instead of the customers going to Passenger Reservation System (PRS), the PRS should be brought to the customer.
Internet ticketing operations of IRCTC were launched in collaboration with the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS). Tickets for train journeys in India can be booked including tatkal tickets on the Internet, on the website www. irctc.co.in, by any user after registering at the site.
Initiative Taken
To make rail ticket booking a hassle free affair for the public, IRCTC started Internet Ticketing Reservation Project. Under this project, IRCTC started online booking of two types of rail ticket, namely i-Ticket and e-Ticket. Before the initiation of the project of IRCTC, booking of rail tickets all over the country was done at the Railway Reservation Centres. Long queues at reservation centres were a common sight. Public had to face the difficulty of visiting these centres besides wasting their precious time. Indian Railways had to spend huge resources to improve its infrastructure to deal with such long queues at their reservation centres. The entire Internet Ticketing concept was conceived, formulated and implemented by IRCTC within a record time span of less than nine months. 36 }
Payment Options
Payments for tickets can be made either by credit cards or by debit cards of certain banks. For customers who are not credit worthy, IRCTC offers Net Banking. This facility is available to users who have their accounts in more than 27 banks for direct debit payment. This is the largest integration of banks for payment through a website in India. IRCTC has Internet Banking facility with ICICI, HDFC, Citibank, IDBI, Bank of Punjab, UTI Bank, State Bank of India, Centurion Bank, Punjab National Bank, ABN AMRO, Corporation Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Syndicate Bank, etc. Transactions carried out on the site are secure since the site is VeriSign certified and financial data is transferred across the Internet in encrypted mode (128 bit encryption). For customers who do not have credit cards, access to net banking or who do not want to use credit cards or net banking facility due to security or any other reason, IRCTC offers them cash card payment options from ITZ Cash Cards, I-Cash Card and Done Cash Card. By opting for Cash Cards, exposure of the customers while transacting over the net is limited to very small amount. Thus, IRCTC offers varied and secure payment options for its customers. i-Ticket
i-Ticket is the ticket which is booked by the Customer, is printed from IRCTC’s operation centre and subsequently w w w.egovonline.net
ov