Echo of service charges for online train reservations: a good increase in booking counters!
Posted on: 26/Nov/2019 2:55:38 PM
The procedure of collecting service charges for online reservations for trains at IRCTC has been resumed.
This collection of additional amount has immediate impact - there has been a substantial increase in the line of passengers at the railway booking counters - the waiting people has gone up by 30% in these booking counters!
The background
Subsequent to the demonetization carried out in the year 2016, in an initiative to encourage the public to prefer electronic financial transactions, the service charges for online train tickets booking were cancelled. This initiative met with huge popularity from the public. In fact the percentage of people booking online in IRCTC shot up by 73%!
However, with the passage of time, Indian Railways had been appealing to the central government that it incurs a loss of around Rs 500 Crores per year on the cancellation of online reservation service charges and it must be restored immediately.
As such, the collection of service charges for booking online IRCTC tickets resumed from 1st September. Accordingly, for non-a/c tickets, a surcharge of Rs. 15 and 5% GST is charged per ticket. For a/c ticket booking, Rs. 30 and 5% GST are charged.
With this, the booking public has tended to return to the old system of booking train tickets at the reservation counters. There has been a phenomenal increase in the number of people booking train tickets in many stations including Chennai, Trichy, and Madurai.
Reactions
Reservation officials
When enquiring about this development to the reservation officials, they shared:
‘As service charges are again collected for online booking, the public has returned to the reservation booking counter. This has been especially more so, as there has been an increase by more than 30% in several stations including Chennai Central, Chennai Egmore, Mambalam, Tambaram, and St. Thomas Mount train ticket reservation booking counters.’
Passengers
In this regard, some passengers also shared:
‘While booking online on the IRCTC website, service charges from Rs. 20 (sleeper class) to Rs. 40(a/c class) are collected. Even for buying a single ticket, the same charges are collected. So, we prefer to come to the reservation counters. The Railways must take action on this considering the passengers’ benefit!’
IRCTC Higher Officials
On their front, the higher officials from IRCTC shared:
‘The service charges, which were cancelled during the year 2016, have been resumed only from this September. We expect a yearly revenue of Rs. 500 Crores through this. This revenue would be used only to improve our services. So, there are no prospects of withdrawing these service charges at present! If the central government intervenes on this issue and offers some subsidy on this front, then only there are prospects for withdrawing the service charges.’
