Online rail tickets set to become cheaper

New Delhi - Continuing its push for a digital economy, the Centre has decided to offer competitive ticket booking to the public by withdrawing service charge on train tickets booked online. The Finance Minister said that service charge on e-ticket booked through IRCTC has been withdrawn and cashless reservation has gone up from 58 per cent to 68 per cent. Passengers have to pay `20 per ticket as service charge on a non-AC ticket booked through IRCTC website while `40 is charged from AC traveler. Passengers buying tickets from counters do not have to pay service charge. IRCTC is likely to lose `500 crore annual revenue on account of waiver of service charge. Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that the decision to continue with no service charge on e-ticket is part of Centre’s big push towards digital and cashless economy. The service charge was waived off post demonitization in November 2016 to encourage more people to book train tickets online. Budget touched upon other transformative measures to make railways competitive which include implementing end to end integrated transport solutions for select commodities through partnership with logistics player, who would provide both front and back end connectivity. “Rolling stock and practices will be customized to transport perishable goods, especially agricultural products. As part of accounting reforms, accrual based financial statements will be rolled out by March 2019,” said Jaitley. The finance minister said that a beginning has been made with regard to station redevelopment and at least 25 stations are expected to be awarded during 2017-18 for station redevelopment. It is proposed to feed about 7,000 stations with solar power in the medium term. A beginning has already been made in 300 stations. Works will be taken up for 2,000 railway stations as part of 1000 MW solar mission.