Nation

Railway ticket booking system merged with IRCTC

B Anbuselvan

CHENNAI: IRCTC, the ticketing and catering arm of the railways, has been given total control of the reservation ticketing system of the national transporter. The move comes just days after the IRCTC was empowered to fix ticket fares for trains that in certain routes. So far, only the Railway Board was authorised to fix the fares. 

IRCTC, subsidiary of the railways, was confined to providing the e-ticket booking facility and catering services. On Tuesday, the Railway Board issued an order segregating the Passenger Reservation Team from the Railway’s IT wing -- Centre of Railway Information System -- and ordered it to report to the IRCTC.

“The entire PRS team should report o IRCTC with the immediate effect,” said the railway board in its order issued on Tuesday. It also ordered that CRIS to draw out plan for smooth transition of entire reservation system to IRCTC within 90 days. The national transporter justified its decision of handing over the reservation system to IRCTC, saying it is needed for migration to new-age ticketing software to meet the increasing passenger demand.

“Presently, 24,000 tickets can be booked per minute in reservation system, which has to be increased,” said the order from railway board. The order further directed the IRCTC to appoint consultant to study the existing Passenger reservation system and suggest plan to seamless change over to New Age Ticketing software under the administrative control of IRCTC.     

The move comes just days after the railways granted approval for handing over two Tejas express rail rakes to IRCTC. The IRCTC will operate these two luxury trains in the routes New Delhi - Lucknow and Mumbai - Ahmedabad as a pilot project. The IRCTC was also empowered to decide the ticket fare in these the two trains in a separate order issued on August 13.

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