Railway Body Rebuts Reports Of Adani Group Becoming Its Competitor

Railway body has clarified that Adani group will not become its competitor with its acquisition of online train booking and information platform 'Trainman', the reports said.

The Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), which handles ticketing services for the Indian Railways refuted reports that the Adani group with its acquisition of online train booking and information platform will become its competitor.

Instead, it said the now-Adani-owned platform is one of IRCTC's authorised partners, and an ownership change wouldn't make any difference.

“Trainman is one of the 32 B2C partners of IRCTC, contributing 0.13% of total reserved ticketing, IRCTC said, adding that around 14.5 lakh reserved tickets are booked daily in the Indian Railways, out of which 81% are e-tickets, booked through IRCTC,” the reports mentioned.

"This is a misleading statement. Trainman is one of the 32 authorised B2C (Business to Customer) partners of IRCTC. Changing the stake won't make any difference. All integration and operations will continue to be done through IRCTC. It will only complement IRCTC and is not a threat or challenge to IRCTC," the PSU clairified while quoting a tweet from senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh.

In an oficial statement, IRCTC explained that it has partnerships with many agencies under schemes like B2B, EGovernance, B2C etc. to complement it's efforts to reach out to citizens for ease of ticketing, and "there is no competition between IRCTC and it's agents".

"Further, B2C firms are especially integrated with IRCTC business to provide reserved eticketing services to customers directly through their websites or mobile Apps through IRCTC API," it added.