Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation(IRCTC) takes care of the tourism, catering and online ticketing operations of the railways and is also a subsidiary of the Indian Railways.
A new Railway Catering Policy was brought about in the year 2010 which was done by the Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee. The policy brought the catering service provided by IRCTC or Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation under the control of the Indian Railways. In trains such as Frakkha Exp, All Duronto Exp, Maitree Express which is a Train running between India and Bangladesh,Kandhari Exp and some Rajdhani Express trains have their catering services taken care of by the IRCTC. Other than this, catering for trains of Zonal Railways across the country are taken care of by the respective railway stations.
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation also took a new initiative to start non railway catering also known as NRC. This is a project taken up by the government according to which cafeterias have been set up in many of India’s Ministries and institutes.
In this age of internet and advancement, being able to book transport tickets by using the internet is a necessity. This facility was not there before but this has been added not very long ago and has now changed the complete face of railway ticketing in the country. Booking railway tickets through the internet could not even be imagined in our country considering the fact that the country was quite technologically lagging behind, at least in the aspect of functioning of the state. Also, booking railway tickets through mobile phones has been implemented.
Using mobile phones, it is possible to book tickets through GPRS or SMS. You can modify or cancel tickets on the website of the Indian Railways online. These tickets booked through the internet are called E Tickets. There is another kind of ticket known as I Ticket. These are more like regular tickets apart from the fact that they are booked online and delivered at your doorstep by post.Recently, the PNR status of the tickets have been made available. It is also possible for passengers to book seasonal tickets on Mumbai’s suburban railway using the IRCTC website.
The IRCTC in the recent past has launched a program called ‘Shubh Yatra’ for travelers who travel frequently. According to this, travelers can avail discounts on regular tickets if tickets of the whole year are booked upfront at one time. It has additionally launched hotel and flight booking facilities which add to their range of online reservation services. To make e-ticketing even more simple and trouble free the IRCTC are planning to launch something called Rolling Deposit Scheme (RDS). IRCTC’s highest per day booking ever was on 1st March 2013 and the number of e-tickets booked amounted to 5.2 lakh.
