Indian Railways Catering And Tourism Development Corporation, in conjunction with India's leading bank ICICI Bank, has announced the launch of mobile payments and ticketing system, offering IRCTC customers to book railway tickets via SMS and make paym

Published: 31 Aug 2005

Indian Railways Catering And Tourism Development Corporation, in conjunction with India's leading bank ICICI Bank, has announced the launch of mobile payments and ticketing system, offering IRCTC customers to book railway tickets via SMS and make paym

The development comes at a stage when the Internet in India is increasingly becoming a great resource for travel planning. In a recent survey by Internet and Online Association (IOA), travel-related categories featured among the most popular, with its survey findings indicating that 39% of respondents had bought railway tickets online and 48% are likely to buy them in the near future; 29% had bought airline tickets online and 46% are likely to buy them in the near future and 20% had bought hotel rooms and 31% are likely to buy them in the near future.

On IRCTC and ICICI Bank tie-up, Chanda Kochhar, executive director, ICICI Bank, said, "This service will undeniably revolutionize the online railway ticketing service by offering customers an alternate ticket-booking channel, thus providing complete online fulfillment by enabling them to conduct their bookings with ease even when on the move."

Registered users of IRCTC and ICICI Bank Mobile Banking can use the IRCTC Short Code- 7245 and book their tickets through two SMS messages for placing booking request and approving price and tickets.

IOA states 50000 customers plan their journeys on the IRCTC site and book over 7000 rail tickets online. The website serves five million page-views everyday and has 50,000+ unique individual visitors.

Amitabh Pandey, Group General Manager (IT Services), IRCTC recently said, ""B2C Ecommerce has become a commercially viable reality in the Indian Business Space today, IRCTC has played a pioneering role in this field and our experience has established that ecommerce is increasingly being accepted across the country by customers as a reliable way of doing business. Ecommerce is the future and we are proud to be a significant part of it".

The number of Internet users in India is expected to be 100 million by 2007.