Indian Railways on Monday increased the limit on the number of train tickets that can be booked on the IRCTC website or app in a month from 6 to 12 using a user ID that is not linked to Aadhaar.
IRCTC has also raised the limit on the number of tickets that can be booked in a month from 12 to 24 by a user ID that is linked to Aadhaar and that one of the passengers in the ticket to be booked is verifiable through Aadhaar.
"At present, maximum 6 tickets in a month can be booked online on IRCTC website/app by a user ID which is not Aadhaar linked and maximum 12 tickets in a month can be booked online on IRCTC website/app by a user ID which is Aadhaar linked and that one of the passengers in the ticket to be booked is verifiable through Aadhaar," says the Ministry of Railways.
Meanwhile, net profit of the Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation for the quarter ended March 2022 was at ₹213.78 crore, up 105.99% compared with ₹103.78 crore in the same quarter last year.
The train ticket booking platform's revenue from operations stood at ₹690.96 crore, up 103.95% from ₹338.78 crore in the year-ago quarter. Revenue from internet ticketing was at ₹292.82 crore in the fourth quarter, compared with ₹212.01 crore in the year-ago period. The company's catering revenue jumped nearly fourfold to ₹266.19 crore in Q4 from ₹67.38 crore in the corresponding period last year. Revenue from Rail Neer - its packaged drinking water business - was at ₹51.88 crore, up from ₹27.80 crore.
Fortune India last month reported that infrastructure upgrade has been one of the key agenda of the railway ministry, which has bagged a major share of the national capital expenditure plan of ₹7.5 lakh crore. The allocation for railways at ₹137,300 crore for FY23 is only next to the transport ministry.
Buoyed by the higher allocation, the railway ministry plans to spend mega sum on infra projects like new lines, gauge conversion and doubling. Allocation towards new lines for example has been enhanced to ₹26,323 crore for 2022-23 from ₹17,014.6 crore allocated for FY22. Allocation towards doubling too has gone up to ₹37,150.31 crore from ₹26,092 crore. It may also be noted that the ministry of railways is in the process of 30,000 wagons for which tenders have been floated.
While announcing the Budget 2022, finance minister Normala Sitharaman said that 400 new Vande Bharat trains will be added to the railway network in the next three years. Vande Bharat is an indigenously developed high-speed train rake.