VISION
“To become a leading provider of high quality travel, tourism and hospitality related services in the country”
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BUSINESS AREAS
IRCTC has two major business areas: 1) Catering & Hospitality and 2) Travel & Tourism
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TRAVEL & TOURISM
IRCTC’s travel & tourism business includes:-
• Tourism products & services including tourist trains, charters, all inclusive tour packages, budget hotels, car rentals
• Internet ticketing
• Railway enquiry call centre.
Tourism is a major thrust area for IRCTC and it is developing a complete spectrum of products & services under its own umbrella. This includes Bharat Darshan (Village on Wheels) trains for the budget traveller. These trains run on circuits of major tourist interest and the package including train travel, road travel, accommodation, meals and sightseeing is priced at Rs 500 per passenger per day. To cater to the requirements of the mid-segment, IRCTC offers a range of all-inclusive tourist packages including train travel, local road travel, accommodation, meals and sight-seeing. The packages are offered in collaboration with various public and private agencies. The fast expanding range of packages includes packages to the Kerala Backwaters, Shimla, Amritsar, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Shirdi, Vashno Devi etc.
For the international tourist and the high end traveller also IRCTC offers a range of products. The recently launched special train for the Buddhist circuit is becoming increasingly popular with the tourists from the East Asian countries and also with the domestic tourists. In the coming years, IRCTC is set to launch a luxury tourist train with a pan India itinerary.
It is also developing budget hotels at major tourist destinations, on PPP basis and is providing car rental facilities in 18 cities all over the country, in collaboration with established car rental agencies. Besides this IRCTC has a number of tie-ups with the tour operators and tourism agencies etc. All these services, combined with its status as the passenger marketing arm of Indian Railways, puts IRCTC in a unique position to be the dominant tourism player in the country.
IRCTC has launched a travel & tourism portal www.railtourismindia.com which aims to offer the complete bouquet of travel & tourism services online. Within a short span of time, www.railtourismindia.com has become a leading travel portal and has been awarded the National Tourism award 2007 for the most innovative use of Information Technology/ Portal promoting tourism.
Internet Ticketing has been a major success story for IRCTC. Its internet ticketing site (www.irctc.co.in) has been one of the most popular websites in whole of Asia and is estimated to account for more than one third of total e-commerce volumes in India. It has recently achieved a landmark of 150,000 tickets (about 270,000 passengers) sold in a day and targets to achieve 360,000 passengers per day by the year 2009. This website provides highly secure transactions with one of the lowest charge back rates in the country today with a large number of payment options including credit, debit & cash cards. Efforts are on to increase the penetration of internet ticketing through setting up a country wide network of agents and already over 16,000 agents are in place.
Rail Sampark (139) call centre service has been launched across the country in 2007-08 and is a service revolution in the making. This service brings high quality enquiry services within the reach of every resident of this country and can be reached from any fixed or mobile phone in the country without STD facility. Besides train related information, it will also be offering a number of value added services such as SMS alerts, Dial-a-ticket, booking of tour packages/ hotels/ cabs etc. With a capacity of 2 million calls a day in eleven languages, this will be the largest call centre in the country.
SMS services are also available through number 56300 where reservation status/ train running position can be obtained by sending an SMS with the pnr number/ train number to 56300.
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CATERING & HOSPITALITY SERVICES
With the motto of Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value IRCTC has made constant effort to upgrade catering services on trains and at railway stations through introduction of new concepts like multi cuisine food courts with international/national and regional flavours, renovated and bright looking Refreshment Rooms, installation of Automatic Vending Machines dispensing hot and cold beverages as well as pre-cooked and pre-packed snack items and development of new modular stalls at platforms with vibrant colours and modern gadgets.
The effort has not just been at the front end, where the paradigm shift is becoming visible. There has been a quantum leap in the back end as well. In mobile catering units, meals come properly packed in food grade casseroles accompanied by a sealed water glass and served by a uniformed server. Efforts are made to ensure that the server is not only aware about the food safety aspects but also about the personal grooming attributes. The meals, especially in premium trains are being prepared in hygienic base kitchens which are HACCP certified. The departmental mega base kitchens are also being completely renovated with state of the art machinery including tilting pans, blast freezers, conveyor belts etc. to come up within the year. Menu revision like introduction of regional items, low calorie meals, Janta Khana has already been implemented.
The introduction of Quality Control Professional (QCPs) who are hospitality industry professionals and are constantly onboard trains, monitoring the quality of catering services and imparting training to licensee staff has been a huge step in the image makeover of catering. Regular Food Audits and Customer Satisfaction Surveys by independent third party agencies have helped IRCTC in evaluating and assessing the realities as well as customer expectations.
IRCTC is taking giant strides in the field of hospitality and stands at the thresholds of new frontier.
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RAIL NEER
Converting the dream of attaining self-reliance into reality is Rail Neer, a branded packaged drinking water for rail commuters. This trusted brand of packaged drinking water conforms to the stringent norms set up by the Bureau of Indian standards (BIS). It further conforms to European Economic Community Norms and its equipment has been supplied by M/s Ion Exchange Ltd.
With two manufacturing plants at Nangloi (inaugurated on 6th May, 2003) and Danapur (inaugurated on 27th February 2004), Rail Neer has attained a milestone. Operating at more than 85% capacity, the annual production of Rail Neer is 3.32 crore bottles. The Rail Neer bottles of mineral water have booked a hit among consumers and the demand for packaged drinking water has increased manifold, especially in the North Eastern region that it has resulted in expansion of capacity of Rail Neer Plant, Danapur.
Encouraged by the resounding success, IRCTC has proposed to set up two more plants at Palur (Chennai) and Ambernath (Mumbai) in the future. Besides, we are exploring the possibility of setting up of new Rail Neer Plants on Private Public Partnership (PPP) model.
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CUSTOMER FOCUS
IRCTC is designed as a customer-centric enterprise and believes in fostering excellence among its employees. With its highly motivated team of professionals, the company is building a strong customer database and maintaining continuous contact with customers to raise the level of quality. In the true sense of India’s age old tradition, IRCTC is working ceaselessly to achieve the philosophy of “Atithi Devo Bhava”.
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