Rail Cash-on-Delivery Ticket Scheme Fails to Take Off
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) had launched its cash-on-delivery (CoD) option for online bookings in February 2015 with much fanfare. But very few are aware about the existence of this scheme.
Most of the officials in charge of the operation of the railway station, station masters as well as the Chennai Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) are unaware about this payment option.
It has been almost more than a month since the IRCTC came out with the scheme in collaboration with BookMyTrain.com, a website owned and managed by Noida-based startup Andruril Technologies.
“The beta version of BookMyTrain’s mobile application was out 15 days ago, but the CoD scheme was initiated in most of the Indian cities in February itself,” said Sandeep Yadav, the Technical Department Head of Andruil Technologies. Rupali Swami, an IRCTC customer executive confirmed the same.
The scheme has been launched on pilot basis and the services will be available to 150–200 cities initially, added Yadav.
However, the station master at Velachery (an area in south Chennai) said, “This scheme was supposed to be executed in Chennai in mid-February, but we have been facing some technical issues. Hopefully it will get fixed soon. One can expect the CoD scheme to be active around Holi.”
Nevertheless, the railway executives at the reservation counters at the Chennai Beach Station (a railway terminus of the Southern Railway Network in Parry’s Corner) had no idea about the scheme and its operation.
“I know for the fact that this scheme is active in metro cities and people are using it. However I couldn’t gather much information on this here, so I came to book my tickets in person,” said Joseph Martin, a passenger standing in a long ticket queue at Chennai Beach station.
IRCTC constituted this CoD system railway ticketing, targeting those consumers who are wary of using their credit or debit cards and those who don’t have access to net-banking facilities.The aim of the scheme was to build a strong B To C (Business to Consumer) relationship, excluding involvement of the third parties such as railway agents. However, very few passengers seem to be benefitting from the scheme.
The initiative has not been receiving the anticipated response, as not only the passengers, but also the authorities appear ignorant about it.
The scheme was aimed at easing the queue at the MRTS reservation counters.
Nearly 360 people come to book their tickets daily in Thiruvanmiyur Station, as per Thana Babu, the reservation supervisor .
“There is an obvious confusion about the implementation of the scheme. If we assume that the scheme is executed, than it doesn’t seem to have had any impact because the number of people that come for booking has remained the same,” said Thana Babu.
The Deputy General Manager at the IRCTC Office in the Chennai Central Station refused to comment on the subject.
