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Mamuni Das

New Delhi, Feb 11 E-tickets for train booking, a service launched about two and half years ago, has virtually taken over the entire Internet booking facility of Indian Railways. In January, e-tickets accounted for 86 per cent of the total 18.81 lakh online ticket bookings.

Apart from the fact that e-ticket booking is simpler and marginally cheaper than i-ticket on account of lower service charges, the increase in share could also be explained by various flexibilities introduced for e-tickets during the past few months like allowing change of boarding place and passenger details after the ticket is booked.

E-tickets & i-tickets

With e-ticket booking facility, Railways simplified the Internet-based ticket booking process significantly as it allowed passengers to take a ticket print-out at their own end after booking the ticket.

The i-ticket facility, introduced by Railways in 2002-03, allows users to book a ticket through the Internet but the ticket print out is taken by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and delivered by post to the passenger.

Share of e-tickets has been increasing steadily since the service launch with e-tickets accounting for 82 per cent share in September 2007 of total online train tickets, up from about 65 per cent (January 2007), 62 per cent (December 2006), 48 per cent (June 2006) and 14 per cent (January 2006).

This share is likely to go up further with Railways planning to allow issuance of wait listed tickets through e-tickets. At present only confirmed tickets can be booked through e-tickets, while wait listed tickets can be booked through i-tickets (thus allowing for a wait listed ticket to be delivered at home after internet booking).

Total online booking

The online ticket booking facility on Indian Railways continued its growth story with 261.54 lakh passengers avoiding the queues to book 142.21 lakh tickets on Internet during April 2007-January 2008, up 179 per cent from 51.04 lakh tickets booked during the corresponding period in the previous fiscal. A maximum of six passengers can be booked on each ticket.

However, there is massive scope for further expansion of these services. Compared to a total of about 248.57 crore passengers who travelled in non-suburban train services during April 2007 to January 2008, slightly over one per cent used tickets booked through the Internet.

Charges

For i-tickets, IRCTC levies a service charge of Rs 40 per ticket in case of second class and sleeper class tickets and Rs 60 per ticket in case of tickets of other classes.

These charges are not per passenger. Over and above this, for online payment, banks levy transaction charges as notified. For e-tickets, IRCTC levies a service charge of Rs 10 (second/sleeper class) and Rs 20 (higher class) for the first passenger and an additional Rs 5 for every subsequent passenger subject to a maximum per ticket charge of Rs 25 (second/sleeper class) and Rs 40 (higher class).

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