PremiumMumbai: Shares of IRCTC, the catering and e-ticketing arm of Indian Railways, rose nearly 1% on Tuesday to hit an all-time high of ₹2,283.60 on the BSE amid a spurt in volumee. The stock has risen 12% in July so far.
The PSU railway stock has soared 77% from its 52-week low of ₹1,291 hit on 4 November 2020. The stock has rallied 58.89% since the beginning of the calendar year as compared to 10% gain in the BSE benchmark index, Sensex.
IRCTC shares today closed at ₹2275.15, up 0.6%, while the benchmark index, Sensex gained 0.76% to close at 52,769,73 points.
“... in e-catering the company has done a few new tie-ups as they opened booking of e-catering food through B2C partners also Ixigo, MNC and MobiKwik and three-four others lead partners. Further, Packaged Drinking Water (i.e.RailNeer) has a monopoly to manufacture and distribute packaged drinking water at all railway stations and in trains across India which caters approximately 45% of the current demand and to increase the market share & to meet the growing demand they have Una plant which has also been made operational. Further, 4 new RailNeer plants have been approved and are expected to be commissioned by 2021-22," Anand Rathi said.
The Railways had earlier allowed zonal authorities to decide on reopening station retiring rooms subject to local conditions including covid-related government protocols. These services were discontinued after the announcement of coronavirus lockdown in March last year.
“The strong balance sheet also enables them to meet the short-term obligations, execute their strategies & growth plans and navigate through uncertainties and cyclic slowdowns" it added.
The Railway Board has already permitted restarting the operations of retiring rooms, Rail Yatri Niwas and hotels which are managed by the IRCTC.
At present, the Railways is running more than 65% of its trains, including various special and express/passenger services.
IRCTC on Friday informed that Ahmedabad Mumbai Tejas Express will resume its services from 7 August 2021. The train will run four days in the week viz, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday, IRCTC said.
The company posted a 23.2% decline in net profit to ₹103.78 crore for the quarter ended 31 March, 2021 against a profit of ₹135.14 crore in the year-ago period. Revenue from operations fell 41% to ₹340 crore for the quarter 31 March 2021 from ₹576 crore for the corresponding quarter of previous year.
IRCTC, a mini ratna public sector enterprise under the administrative control of Ministry of Railways, is the sole entity authorized by Indian Railways to provide catering services to railways, online railway tickets and packaged drinking water at railway stations and trains in India. According to the latest shareholding, Government of India holds 67.4% stake in the company.
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