Online ticket booking touches 7 lakh daily

Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) achieved a record booking of about seven lakh tickets online per day across the country in 2014. Buoyed by the increase in online ticket booking, the IRCTC has decided to provide better services to its customers registered with its site www. irctc.co.in during peak time. According to IRCTC sources, the corporation has been making all possible efforts to expand its network. Efforts are on to extend its services to airline ticket booking also. This would be a major thrust area for spreading the network, sources said, adding premium 'tatkal' online ticket booking is another important area for IRCTC to streamline its services in the larger interest of passengers. Railways' online ticket booking through the IRCTC site has registered a huge increase reaching about 7 lakh per day from about 40,000 bookings per day in 2008. The IRCTC is likely to target about 7.5 lakh bookings a day in 2015, an IRCTC official said. Confirming the increase in ticket booking through the IRCTC, corporation PRO Sandip Dutta said the IRCTC has chalked out a comprehensive plan to cope with the rush of customers on its site. "The IRCTC has managed to maintain its lead position in the domestic travel ticket bookings. But it is keen to make its portal a 'one-stop shop' for planning tours and other services by passengers," he said. IRCTC, which is a part of Indian Railways, has already become an agent of International Air Transport Association (IATA). It has tied up with Air India and Jet Airways to provide services, sources said. A major initiative of IRCTC is to popularize SMS ticket booking, like online ticket booking system. It has already reduced the payment transaction time, which is about 1.5 to 2.5 minutes per ticket booking, online. The failure rate at the transaction stage is hardly 20%. But in the case of certain banks, failure rate goes up to 40% due to lack of 'state-of-the-art' arrangement between the IRCTC and banks concerned, sources said.