E-ticketing in India is on track, literally. For every five
passengers purchasing railway tickets in India, there is one person
booking it
online. What’s more, if the Indian railways’ e-ticketing figures
for the
month of July is any indication, over 50% of the total online booking
takes place for sleeper class.

For Indian Railways (IR), the turnover from e-ticketing jumped to a
whopping Rs
1,744 crore in FY08 from a mere Rs 27 cr in 2002, according to data
available
with Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC). The
earnings have
already crossed Rs 978 cr for the first four months of FY09, and is
likely to be around Rs 3,500 cr by the year-end.

Upgradation of existing technical infrastructure by IRCTC including
server
upgradation, increasing the bandwidth and addition of software were
the main
drivers of this e-ticketing growth. ”Sudden spurt of e-bookings is
the result
of technical advancement techniques introduced by Indian Railways
which include
servers and connectivity enhancement” former Railway Board chairman
V K Agarwal said.

The importance of e-ticketing can be gauged from the fact that most e-
bookings
are taking place in sleeper classes, which are non-ACs. In fact, 55%
of the
total e-ticketing in July was for sleeper class. While credit card is
still the
most preferred mode of payment, accounting for 41% of the total
electronic
booking in July, as high as 31% customers adopted the net banking
route.

In fact, e-ticketing has made a long journey since 2002-03 when it was
first
introduced in India. During that year, only 4.17 lakh passengers
booked
e-tickets. In 2007-08, it touched 3.52 crore. During the first four
months of
the current fiscal, 1.95 crore passengers booked their tickets
electronically.

Said an IRCTC official: “We are aiming to achieve a better growth in
the
coming years as we have been trying to reach out to aam aadmi in all
possible
ways. For the Indian Railways, e-ticketing is also a cost cutting
instrument.”

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Economy/Over_50_of_Rlys_sleeper_c...
g_is_now_online/articleshow/3347011.cms

10 Aug, 2008, 0201 hrs IST