Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) was incorporated as a public limited company on September 27, 1999, under the Companies Act 1956 and was granted a certificate of incorporation by the Deputy Registrar of Companies N.C.T. of Delhi and Haryana. A subsidiary of Indian Railways, IRCTC is one of the biggest companies in India.
Recently, the company held an initial public offering on the National Stock Exchange. The base price of shares was set between ₹315 (US$4.17) and ₹320 (US$4.60) per share for the IPO.
Learn some unknown and interesting facts about IRCTC.
1. IRCTC is one of the most visited websites of India and is maintained and developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS). Broadvision powers the ticket booking platform. It is one of the most unknown facts about IRCTC because many a time, people think TCS has built the website, but that is not true.
2. IRCTC’s next-generation e-ticketing system can book 7200 tickets per minute after the website was revamped in 2014 against the 2000 tickets generation per minute earlier.
3. IRCTC booked just 27 tickets on the first day when it was launched in 2002. Today, it boasts of booking an average of 5 lakh tickets per day. Approximately, 31 crore train tickets are booked in a year out of which 55% of tickets are sold through windows, 37% of tickets are booked online and 8% are booked by ticketing agents.
4. Did you know that nearly 42% of customers pay for IRCTC booking through Internet banking & 24% use Credit/Debit cards? IRCTC has also started a cash-on-delivery system for rail tickets in tier-1 cities. You can get your ticket right at your doorstep and pay the ticket price to the delivery boy.
5. If you are a female and you are booking a seat through IRCTC then you do not have to worry about being stuck with 5 men and being alone. The algorithm of IRCTC is such that you will always have one female companion in your compartment.
6. One of the most amazing facts about IRCTC is the difference in the captcha. When you’re booking a ticket in normal time (i.e, other than Tatkal booking time) the captcha will look normally like this, which is easier to identify.
This is done to reduce the traffic in Tatkal hours because it will take longer than usual if they provide complex captcha.
7. If you book flight tickets using IRCTC, you end up saving at least ₹150 per person. Convenience charges in MMT, Yatra and even in Indigo is ₹200 per person. In IRCTC, it is only ₹50 per transaction.
8. The IRCTC website is currently one of the most transacted websites in the Asia-Pacific region with a transaction volume of more than 25 million per month and 7.2 million logins per day.
9. The IRCTC website can handle an unimaginable amount of traffic. According to official data, over 1.5 lakh people can use the website at the same time. It boasts of more than 12 million unique monthly visitors. Moreover, you will be amazed to know that over 1 million people check PNR status daily on IRCTC website and app.
10. IRCTC is the only entity authorized by Indian Railways to provide catering services to passengers, online railway tickets, and packaged drinking water at railway stations and in trains. It is an amazing railway fact, to be honest.
11. It has also diversified into other businesses including non-railway catering and services such as e-catering, executive lounges, and budget hotels which are in line with its objective to build a one-stop solution for its customers.
12. Rail Neer, a premium packaged drinking water brand, is a product of IRCTC. Consumer Voice Magazine ranked Rail Neer as a top performer in its category in 2017.
13. IRCTC offers two types of catering services under its operations. The on-board catering offered in trains is referred to as mobile catering while catering services at stations via food plaza are referred to as static catering.
14. On September 2, 2013, the e-ticketing website of IRCTC booked the highest number of e-tickets ever on a single day. You would be astonished to know that 5.72 lakh railway tickets were booked on that day. Now that is something which even Amazon and Flipkart have not been able to accomplish. This is one of the cool facts about IRCTC.
15. If we talk about IRCTC revenue facts, the company earned a total revenue of ₹1,956.66 crores in FY19, up by 24.66 per cent from the total revenue of ₹1,569.56 crores earned in FY18. IRCTC had declared an interim dividend of Rs 7.65 per equity share aggregating to a total of nearly ₹122.37 crores.
16. Digital wallets are gaining widespread popularity, so to make the ticket booking easier and faster, IRCTC has launched its e-wallet called iMudra. Apart from booking tickets, you can also pay bills, recharge, and even withdraw cash from an ATM by getting an iMudra prepaid card.
17. IRCTC also offers e-catering services to passengers through its mobile application ‘Food on Track’ and its e catering website www.ecatering.irctc.co.in.
18. The company has its presence across all major tourism segments such as hotel bookings, rail land cruise, air tour packages and flight ticket bookings. Because of its diverse operations, IRCTC is known as one of India’s leading travel and tourism companies catering to the needs of various tourist segments.
19. IRCTC has been a profitable and debt-free company since its incorporation. It has an established track record of delivering strong annual returns to shareholders.
20. IRCTC became the first organization other than Indian Railways to operate its train. Started on 24 May 2017, IRCTC’s Tejas Express became the first private train in India.
Currently, IRCTC runs 4 Tejas Express trains:
Mumbai CSMT – Karmali Tejas Express (22119/22120)
Chennai Egmore – Madurai Tejas Express (22671/22672)
Lucknow – New Delhi Tejas Express (82501/82502)
Ahmedabad – Mumbai Central Tejas Express (82901/82902)
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