If you want to go from Hubli in North Karnataka to Katra near Vaishno Devi, you will probably have to book multiple tickets through various agents.

But this may change if travel site >Travelyaari.com has its way.

“We have approached the railway authorities and once we get the APIs (application programming interface, which allows programmers to access the functionality of software modules), we can enable this in the next three to six months,” said Aurvind Lama, co-founder and Director of the company.

Today, some body from Hubli will have to book a train or a bus from Hubli to Bangalore, take a train to Delhi, and then go from there to Katra by bus or train. This may involve two private bus operators based out of Hubli and Delhi. Lama, whose company makes ERP (enterprise resource planning) software for bus agents said that once the API functionality is provided by the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd, a traveller can directly book all the required tickets for the journey.

While travel agents can do some work in connecting you, the options are currently limited, said Lama. “Today, a travel agent has to do it manually, but with the new system, if you say that you want a ticket from Hubli to Katra, you are given all options automatically without any manual intervention.”

Lama said that this will imply more operators in smaller towns and Travelyaari.com is increasing its operator base from the current 700 to 1,200 by March next year. He said that his company, which has a turnover of around Rs 110 crore as of the year ended March, may touch Rs 250 crore by March next year.

According to the World Bank, India’s roads carry almost 90 per cent of the country’s passenger traffic. As of 2009, India’s rail track length was 63,327 km, while the length of roads was 35.16 lakh km, of which main roads account for 6.66 lakh km.

>balaji.narasimhan@thehindu.co.in

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