IRCTC to roll out Aadhar-linked ticketing by year end
NEW DELHI: IRCTC is planning to roll out Aadhar linked ticketing services by year end to check fraudulent bookings by touts and bring transparency in ticket booking.
Initially services will be started for senior citizens concession tickets and slowly it will be extended to other categories. The Aadhar linked ticketing is expected to start by December as the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is in the process of linking the data base with Aadhar data.
The idea for linking Aadhar with railway ticketing has been discussed since 2013 but Prime Minister Office has now given go ahead to railways to start the process and make it a user friendly process.
Indian Railway provides concession in fares to 53 categories including specially-abled, students and freedom fighters among others. Male senior citizens above 60 years of age are given 40 percent concession on base fare while women above the age of 58 years can avail 50 percent concession in all classes.
“We have started the process to issue Aadhar based ticketing and likely to be rolled out by December this year . People will now have to provide Aadhar number for registering with IRCTC. This will check fraudulent booking by touts and being transparency in the ticketing,” said IRCTC CMD A K Manocha.
IRCTC has been taking measures like captchas and one time password on registered mobile numbers to check mass ticket bookings by touts.
IRCTC is hopeful that with launch of Aadhar linked ticketing services in all booking categories, even unreserved, will boost its travel insurance service. As of now railways insurance service is limited to online reserved ticketing and with Aadhar, it can be extended to unreserved category as railways will have access to personal data of passenger in unreserved category. IRCTC through private players offer Rs 10 lakh travel insurance at a premium of 92 paise to passengers in case of death and grievous injury.
“About 27 lakh passengers have availed the travel insurance since the launch of insurance on September 1. The reason we have not covered unreserved category yet is that we don’t have any databse of people travelling in unreserved coaches but with Aadhar that is possible. It will also bring the insurance premium from 92 paise now to somewhere around 10-50p per travel,” he said.