No plans to withdraw fee on e-tickets: Railway Minister Piyush Goel

Nellore: Minister for railways, commerce and industry Piyush Goel informed in Rajya Sabha that there was no fresh proposals now to reconsider the convenience fee on e-tickets. He replied to a query raised by the V Prabhakar Reddy in Rajya Sabha on Friday.

The minister said that the online tickets booked through the IRCTC constitute 72 per cent now. He explained that the IRCTC had started levying service charges on passengers after introducing the online ticketing facility in 2002. But the charges were withdrawn in November 2016 temporarily for incentivising the digital transactions.

Goel also informed that the IRCTC had been incurring huge losses for providing online ticketing facility, introduction of Vikalp scheme for alternative accommodation, artificial intelligence-based Passenger Name Record (PNR) confirmation predictor, and other services for the convenience of the passengers.