IRCTC booked over 5 lakh tickets on a single day, twice in two months

IRCTC CMD Rakesh Tandon

Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) through its e-ticketing website www.irctc.co.in, on September 2, booked the highest ever e-tickets on a single day. The record booking...
of 5.72 lakh e-tickets surpassed the previous highest of 5.04 lakhs recorded on August 12, 2013. This is the third time IRCTC booked more than 5 lakh tickets this year, the first time it was on March1, 2013.
IRCTC has booked a total of 135 lakh e-tickets with an average of 4.34 lakhs daily in August 2013. This was against a total of 123 lakh e-tickets with an average of 3.99 lakhs daily in August last year. The overall daily average booking was around 3.85 lakhs last year 2012-13.
The total number of passengers booked by IRCTC has also gone up to 233 lakhs in August 2013 against 220 lakhs in August 2012.
In another move, IRCTC recently launched the non-internet SMS-based ticketing through which one can book a railway ticket with a basic feature mobile phone, by sending simple SMSes. This move will benefit the people living in rural or semi-urban areas who don’t have access to internet.
In another development, after two successful trips in 2012, IRCTC has set off its third trip of Gyanodaya Express on September 2.
Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, minister of state for railways flagged off the train from Delhi Safdarjung station. Rakesh Tandon, CMD, IRCTC and other top Railway and IRCTC officials were also present on the occasion.
IRCTC in association with the Delhi University embarked, in 2012, on a first of its kind unique project, “GYANODAYA EXPRESS – AN EDUCATIONAL TRAIN JOURNEY” to impart quality education and assist nation building by carving overall personalities and help explore hidden talents in students, said an IRCTC release.
The earlier two trips were run in Delhi-Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Goa-Bangaluru-Wardha-Delhi and Delhi-Jodhpur-Bikaner-Jaisalmer-Delhi sectors in 2012. This time it will be a 7 nights/8 days tour covering Amritsar, Ludhiana, Chandigarh and Kurukshetra.
There are around 850 students including about 150 international students from the Universities of Edinburgh and London.
The objective of the trip is to acquaint and provide the students an exposure on the advancements in urbanisation and industry along with the cultural, religious and traditional diversity of India, said the release.