Lok Sabha Question No. 249 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2021-02-03
Subject: Revamping of IRCTC Website
Ministry: RAILWAYS
Asked by: Subhash Ramrao Bhamre, Amol Ramsing Kolhe, Sunil Dattatray Tatkare, Kuldeep Rai Sharma, Supriya Sadanand Sule, DNV Senthilkumar. S.

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO.249

TO BE ANSWERED ON 03.02.2021

## REVAMPING OF IRCTC WEBSITE

249.   DR. SUBHASH RAMRAO BHAMRE:

DR. AMOL RAMSING KOLHE:

SHRI SUNIL DATTATRAY TATKARE:

SHRIMATI SUPRIYA SULE:

DR. DNV SENTHILKUMAR S.:

SHRI KULDEEP RAI SHARMA:

Will the Minister of RAILWAYS be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has revamped IRCTC website recently;
- (b) if so, the details thereof along with the theme of the revamped IRCTC website;
- (c) the advantage of revamping IRCTC for the train passengers;
- (d)  the  agency  which  is  responsible  for  developing  and  managing the information technology application of the Indian Railways;
- (e) the estimated number of rail passengers who have used IRCTC for booking train tickets during each of the last three years; and
- (f)  the  other  steps  taken by the Government to make IRCTC more accessible,  efficient  and  technologically  sound  to  cater  to  the needs of the rail passengers?

## ANSWER

MINISTER OF RAILWAYS, COMMERCE & INDUSTRY AND CONSUMER AFFAIRS, FOOD & PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION

(SHRI PIYUSH GOYAL)

(a) to (f) : A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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STATEMENT  REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (a)  TO  (f)  OF UNSTARRED  QUESTION  NO.  249    BY  DR.  SUBHASH  RAMARAO BHAMRE,  DR.  AMOL  RAMSING  KOLHE,  SHRI  SUNIL  DATTATREY TATKARE, SHRIMATI SUPRIYA SULE, DR. DNV SENTHIKUKAR S. AND SHRI  KULDEEP  RAI  SHARMA  TO  BE  ANSWERED  IN  LOK  SABHA  ON 03.02.2021 REGARDING REVAMPING OF IRCTC WEBSITE.

(a)  to  (d):    Ministry  of  Railways  has  revamped  and  upgraded  its  eticketing  website  www.irctc.co.in  and  Indian  Railway  Catering  And Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) Rail Connect Mobile App, which are used for  booking  of  'online'  Railway  tickets  on  31st  December,  2020. Railway customer has been the focus of the design of the revamped application.  It  has  been  developed  by  IRCTC  through  Centre  for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the Information Technology arm of the Ministry of Railways. Novel user personalization features linked to user log in have been incorporated, along with customizations for seamless travel experience, one stop train selection for booking, and integrated  booking  for  meals  and  accommodation  with  tickets.  The advantages of the revamped application for the rail users include -

-  Booking of meals, retiring rooms and hotels have been integrated and can be booked directly along with the tickets, thus providing a one stop solution for the needs of the traveller.
-  Predictive  entry  suggestions  using  Artificial  Intelligence  to  be given  to  the  passenger  when  he  is  entering  the  'From  -  To' station. This will greatly reduce the hassle in searching stations and also save time in ticket booking.
-  'Regular' or 'Favorite' journeys can be booked easily by automatically entering relevant details.

- Train search and selection simplified by putting the information on  one  page  to  reduce  the  time  used  by  passengers  and
-  enhancing the booking experience.
- o All  information  on  one  page  -  Availability  for  all  class  is displayed  along  with  respective  fares  for  all  trains.  Users  can simply  scroll  the  page  and  choose  to  'Book'  the  desired  train and class. Earlier each train seat availability and fares could be seen only after clicking on that train individually.
- o Cache system has been introduced  in  the  backend  to  provide availability status. This has eliminated the delay in loading train by train availability earlier.
- o In case waitlisted tickets, its 'confirmation probability' generated  using  Artificial  Intelligence  tools,  is  displayed  for helping in selection of train/class. Earlier this had to be checked for each waitlist status separately.
- o Availability  for  other  dates  can  be  toggled  easily  on  the  page itself.
- o Prompts  during  the  booking  process  have  been  provided  for making it easy for even less computer familiar users. This will save  his  time  in  wandering  on  the  website  for  searching  the website.
-  Journey booking details will be shown also at the payment page. It  will  prompt  the  user  to  check  and  rectify,  if  there  are  any typographical errors, which otherwise need to be corrected from a Passenger Reservation System (PRS) centre.
-  It  has  in-built  features  for  enhancing  cyber  security  by  using appropriate captchas.

-  Simpler checking of the refund status at the user accounts page. Earlier this feature was not easily accessible.

(e) :   Rail passengers who have used IRCTC for booking tickets during last three years are given below:-

| Financial year        | Passengers booked using IRCTC application   |
|-----------------------|---------------------------------------------|
| 2018-19               | 49,49,50,699                                |
| 2019-20               | 52,29,61,614                                |
| 2020-21 (till Dec-20) | 14,75,21,841                                |

(f):  Ministry of Railways has taken several steps from time to time to modernise the ticketing process.  Next Generation e-Ticketing (NGeT) system,  with  increased  server  capacity,  was  launched  in  2014.  The capacity  of  IRCTC  e-Ticketing  System  was  2000  tickets  per  minute prior to launch of NGeT System. The NGeT system was launched with the  booking  capacity  of  7,200  tickets  per  minute.  The  system  has been upgraded constantly to handle increased load of 15,000 tickets per  minute  in  2016-17,  18,000  tickets  per  minute  in  2017-18  and 20,000 tickets per minute in 2018-19. Presently, IRCTC Website has a capacity of booking over 25,000 tickets per minute. A record number of 26,458 tickets were booked in a minute on 5 March, 2020.

IRCTC has launched IRCTC Rail Connect Android Mobile App on Next Generation e-ticketing system in January 2017. IRCTC Rail Connect is fully secured and facilitates the customer with  hassle free,  seamless

and  cashless  transactions.  About  47%  of  the  overall  e-tickets  are booked through IRCTC  Rail Connect Mobile App.  IRCTC  Rupay card has been launched recently in collaboration with the State Bank of  India  (SBI),  as  a  travel  credit card with  value  back benefits to regular  rail  users,  on  booking  of  tickets  through  the IRCTC website. IRCTC  has also integrated new  payment  modes  like e-wallets, BHIM/UPI, Scan and Pay along with Credit Card, Debit Card  and Net banking payment modes to give variety of payment modes for ease of transaction by customers.

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