With concerns still looming over Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’s (IRCTC's) service charge, the listing plans of three railway public sector undertakings – Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC), IRCON, and IRCTC – are on track. According to sources close to the development, bid managers have been appointed for all three companies and the government is likely to take a call on IRCTC's service charge by June 30. Service charges on online train tickets were exempted from November 23, 2016, to March 31 this year in order to boost digital mode of transactions among passengers. This was later extended to June 30.

Railways have decided to provide the 'buy tickets now and pay later' service for any Express trains, an IRCTC official said on Thursday.

According to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) Ltd official, soon passengers would be able to buy tickets from the IRCTC website and pay later.

NEW DELHI: The railways will launch shortly its redesigned e-tendering system with more user-friendly new features to facilitate digital participation of over 60,000 vendors. Ushering in a new era by going paperless, the system envisages that bids are invited online and the entire process leading to award of a tender is done electronically.

Online refund of tender cost and earnest money deposit, online bidder deregistration process, integration with payment gateways of more banks are currently underway in the railways to make the system efficient and transparent, said a senior railway ministry official responsible for the e-system.

Following the launch of initial public offering (IPO) of Hudco, after a five-year drought of PSU listings, the government is readying a series of IPOs by state-run firms. Hindustan Aeronautics(HAL), Cochin Shipyard, General Insurance (GIC Re) and New India Assurance (NIA) are among the firms that are likely to hit the market in the current fiscal.

Mumbai: Banks have locked horns with IRCTC, the ticketing arm of Indian Railways after it started demanding that they put up hefty security deposits and share half of their transaction fees with it if they want to be on its rail booking website.

Under its new policy, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corp. Ltd (IRCTC) wants new banks wishing to integrate with it for payment gateways to put up Rs20 lakh as a security deposit, while those already present must pay Rs10 lakh.

Withdrawal of service charges on rail ticketing, while helping promote digital transactions after demonetisation, may derail the proposed listing of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) in the current financial year, sources told FE. However, sources said, preparation for listing of two other railway PSUs —Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC) and IRCON — are well on course and their IPOs are expected to hit the market by September.

Indian Railways has missed its revenue targets — albeit marginally — for FY17, with th heavily-subsidised passenger segment yielding `1,000 crore less than the revised estimate announced in the Budget. Officials are, however, upbeat about a robust increase in the transporter’s revenue in the new financial year as both its passenger and freight traffic have lately started looking up.

Three days after setting stiff time-bound targets for listing of profitable central PSUs, the government on Monday initiated steps to divest up to 25% in the initial public offerings (IPOs) of three railways undertakings — IRCTC, IRFC and IRCON.

The department of investment and public asset management (DIPAM) has invited applications from merchant bankers to manage the IPOs in 2017-18. Though DIPAM did not specify how much stake the Centre would dilute in these IPOs, sources told FE that it could be up to 25% each depending on valuations.

New Delhi: Railway minister Suresh Prabhu on Monday unveiled a new catering policy that holds Indian Railways’ catering unit responsible for a range of services and directs it to submit a business plan within a specified time frame, prescribing a penalty in case it fails to meet the deadline.

Under the Indian Railways Catering Policy 2017, the food production and distribution functions have been separated in an attempt to ensure that healthy and hygienic food is served on trains and railway platforms, following regular complaints against food quality.

The government has kickstarted the process of listing three rail PSUs IRCTC, Ircon and IRFC by seeking initial bids from merchant bankers for their respective IPOs (initial public offer) in just less than three weeks of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s announcement regarding the disinvestment of these companies. The government has sought expression of interest (EoI) from merchant bankers by March 16 for managing the IPOs.

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