IRCTC share price gains over 2 pct after it revises food prices

It has been an amazing journey for this Railways company on the stock markets. After a dream debut, it has been working wonders for the investors and has emerged as one of the top stocks of 2019. Today, it again made the news. Share price the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) on Tuesday advanced 2.65 per cent to end at Rs 887.45 apiece after it announced revised food prices on Tuesday. Clearly, for investors, this has emerged as a money-making opportunity.

According to the regulatory filing the revised prices (inclusive of GST) were: Rs 35 for Veg Breakfast, Rs 45 for Non-Veg Breakfast, Rs 70 for Standard meal and Rs 80 for meal with egg curry and Rs 120 with chicken curry, according to IANS.

A Veg-Biryani (350 gram) will cost Rs 70 while an egg Biryani Rs 80 and a chicken Biryani Rs 100. A 350 gram snack meal will cost Rs 50.

The railway ministry has asked the IRCTC and zonal railways to ensure that the price hike resulted in visible improvement in quality and hygiene of food being served at the railway stations. In order to achieve this objective, authorities will conduct intensive inspections," IRCTC said.
Cabinet's green flag to railways organisation restructuring
The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Tuesday approved the organisational restructuring of the railways through the unification of the existing eight Group A services into one central service called the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS).

According to the government, the unification of services will end `departmentalism`, promote smooth working of railways, expedite decision making and create a coherent vision for the organisation.

"This historic reform will go a long way in achieving the government`s vision of making Indian Railways the growth engine of India`s vikas yatra," said the Ministry of Railways in a statement.

The Railway Board will be reorganised on the functional lines and be headed by a Chairman, and comprise four members and some independent members, who will be highly distinguished professionals with deep knowledge and 30 years of experience including at the top levels in industry, finance, economics and management fields.

"These independent members will help Railway Board in setting a strategic direction. The restructured Board will start functioning after approval of the Board taking due care to ensure that officers are posted in the restructured Board or adjusted in the same pay and rank till their retirement," the railways statement said.

Unification of services has been recommended by various committees for reforming Railways including the Prakash Tandon Committee (1994), the Rakesh Mohan Committee (2001), the Sam Pitroda Committee (2012) and the Bibek Debroy Committee (2015). The modalities and unification of the services will be worked out by the Ministry of Railways in consultation with Department of Personnel and Training with the approval of an alternate mechanism to be appointed by Cabinet in order to ensure fairness and transparency. The process shall be completed within a year.

The unification of the services come in the backdrop of various departments within railways. These departments - traffic, civil, mechanical, electrical, signal & telecom, stores, personnel, and accounts etc - are vertically separated from top to bottom and are headed by a Secretary level officer (Member in the Railway Board).

The statement emphasised that the railways has an ambitious programme to modernise and provide the highest standards of safety, speed and services to the passengers with a proposed investment of Rs 50 lakh crore over the next 12 years. "This requires speed and scale, and a unified, agile organisation to work single-mindedly on this task and capable of responding to challenges, it said.

Hiring for the IRMS, from the next recruitment cycle, will be done in consultation with DoPT and the UPSC. It will enable Railways to recruit engineers/non-engineers as per need, and offer equality of opportunity to both categories in career progression. These recruits will be posted as per their aptitude and specialisation, which will prepare them to take up general management responsibilities at senior levels.

The existing Indian Railway Medical Service (IRMS) will be renamed as Indian Railway Health Service (IRHS).