In the 'News par Views' section on Thursday, Zee Business Managing Editor Anil Singhvi spoke to IRCTC CMD Rajni Hasija and discussed about IRCTC result, their future plan and revenue model.  

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Starting the conversation, Zee Business Managing Editor said IRCTC has given good result on quarter-on-quarter basis, while it appears weak on year-on-year data. "We should see the result for both periods. If we see on YoY basis, it is totally the impact of Covid 19 pandemic, while on quarter-on-quarter basis it shows that we have equally worked in all quarters. In the first quarter, we made loss for the first time in history of IRCTC, however, in the very next quarter, we made 32 crore profits. Similarly, our profit in Q3 stood at Rs 78 crore and we clocked Rs 103 crore in Q4. Everyone knows that hospitality and catering sectors have been hit the hard by the pandemic, while tourism has been hit the maximum. This is the reason that our profit is less when we compare it with the last year," Said Rajni Hasija explaining the differences in the quarterly and annual profit made by the Indian Railways ticketing and catering arm  

We have also tried our best to keep the faith of our investors intact in us, she said. " We have tried to generate good profit. Our overall profit is Rs 189 crore, which is 62% less than the last year. However, we have been able to do better than our peers. We have also declared dividend to ensure that investors faith in us continues to remain like before," said IRCTC CMD.  

Comparing the last two years, we have only been able to issue half of our total tickets due to impact of coronavirus and lockdown in many states. "However, we have seen tremendous growth in online ticket booking. It has grown from 72 % to 80%. We have also suffered during April-May period this year due to second wave, but we have been doing exceptionally well since June.  As we are increasing trains regularly, our other operations like catering and tourism will also pick up pace gradually," she said. 

As far as ticket booking is concerned, we are working on 100 % capacity, which is not only more than the previous year which was affected by Covid 19, but also the year before. Tourism will take some time to take off, however, we have seen good growth in trains with catering and Rail Nir services, said IRCTC CMD.   

Talking about future plans, Rajni said, "First thing is to cover up the losses in terms of revenue. In ticketing, we are working on some loyalty schemes in Tejas trains. We have also initiated push notification on technological front," She added.