IRCTC reduces convenience fees on e-tickets by 25%, say officials
New Delhi: Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), the extended commercial arm of Indian Railways, in a recent development has decided to reduce the convenience fees to be charged from the customers for booking e-tickets online through its website www.irctc.co.in.
The company will now charge Rs. 15 per ticket for booking Non-AC classes online while it will charge Rs. 30 per ticket for booking AC and First Classes tickets. This is 25% decrease in the earlier service charges of Rs. 20 per ticket for Non-AC Class tickets and Rs. 40 per ticket for AC First class.
The company has further decided to charge only Rs 10 per ticket for booking Non-AC class tickets and Rs 20 per ticket for AC and First Class tickets for customers making payment made through UPI/BHIM applications which shall be applicable from 1st November, 2019. The company has also decided to further incentivize the customers making online payment through UPI/BHIM applications.
The existing e-ticketing platform of IRCTC also known as the Next Generation E-Ticketing system (NGeT) was commissioned by the company in the year 2014 for service period of 5 years with a capacity to book 7200 tickets in a minute and was progressively enhanced to book 24000 tickets in a minute.
With the number of bookings of the e-tickets growing day by day, it has become essential to handle this incremental load and meet the industry standards specially during the Tatkal hours. To meet this need and live up to the expectations of the customers, IRCTC is planning to invest in the up-gradation of the infrastructure of the entire e-ticketing system which may require
huge investments to build the new system robust, secured with latest booking features and utilities.
Further, IRCTC is also focusing on the capacity enhancement of the ticketing system to support more number of ticket bookings in the near future and to also modernize the e-ticketing system in synchronization with the modernization of the Indian Railway Passenger Booking System which currently has an inventory of 10 lakh reserved tickets per day.
IRCTC is making all out efforts and necessary investments to improve the entire e-ticketing system for seamless navigation.
