Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003 |
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Logistics
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Railways Marketing - Strategy Rail tickets now only a call away Gaurav Raghuvanshi
New Delhi , Sept. 9 A RAIL ticket will soon be just a phone call away, with the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) tying up with call centres of leading banks to accept customers' requests for tickets over telephone. "We are aware that most users are chary of putting their credit card numbers on the net. To overcome this hurdle, we have fixed up with eight banks, including State Bank of India, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, for inter-account transfer of funds for booking tickets. Over the next couple of weeks, customers will also be able to instruct their call-centre agents to book tickets for them," the IRCTC Managing Director, Mr M.N. Chopra, told Business Line. Mr Chopra said IRCTC was also negotiating with cellular service providers to offer the service to their subscribers through their call centres with the charges included in their monthly bills. "That will be the next stage. We are aiming to make buying tickets hassle free, safe and convenient," he said. IRCTC, a Railways subsidiary, has a direct interface with the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) of the Railways and is already booking over 2,700 tickets per day. The site boasts of over 30,000 hits daily and has become the largest e-commerce Web site in the country. Passengers are required to log on to the IRCTC Web site and book tickets using their credit cards or through direct transfer from their bank accounts. "Our Web site is virtually impregnable and we have two gateways — ICICI Bank and Citibank — for credit card users to book their tickets," he said. On the company's catering activities, Mr Chopra said IRCTC opened its 12th food plaza at Hazrat Nizamuddin station in the Capital recently. The facility, spread over 4,000 square feet, offers multi-cuisine food with popular restaurant chains such as Pizza Corner and Haldiram having outlets in the complex.
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