New Delhi, Jan 6: The Indian Railways has dropped the service charges levied on online booking of tickets through its official website Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) till March 31, 2018. The step has been taken in a bid to promote cashless transactions among passengers booking train tickets.
The Railways, in a statement, has said that the service charge levied on train ticket bookings through debit or credit card transactions has also been rolled back, a report claims. Service charges on booking train tickets online through the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) range from Rs 20 to Rs 40 per ticket.
Additionally, passengers will be able to book train tickets on their mobile phones wherein they can make the payment through debit or credit cards, net banking or e-wallets, among other modes.
The government had waived service charges after demonetisation in November 2016 to encourage digital modes of booking. The facility had been extended to 30 June and then 30 September.
Noteworthy, almost 33 per cent of the IRCTC revenue comes from the service charge collected on online bookings and it was in September last year that the Railway Board directed IRCTC to continue service charge exemption on tickets booked online till March 2018.
As per the revenue collection of the last financial year, about Rs 540 crore of IRCTC’s revenue of over Rs 1,500 crore came from ticket bookings. An amount of around Rs 184 crore has not been realized from passengers on account of service charge and service tax thereon on reserved tickets booked online from 23 November 2016 to 28 February 2017, according to railways data.
(Inputs from PTI)