Six new Rail Neer plants are in Pipeline; two of the plants will be commissioned soon: Rajni Hasija, CMD, IRCTC

Rajni Hasija, Chairman & Managing Director, IRCTC, talks about the cancellation of mobile catering licenses by the railway ministry, Response to recently launched online bus ticketing facility, Rail Neer and plans associated with it, tourism packages and budget hotels among others during an exclusive chat with Swati Khandelwal, Zee Business. Edited Excerpts: 

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Q: Recently Railway ministry ordered to cancel all the Mobile catering Licenses and for which you have already made the majority of refunds. But now when more trains will be back on track then what will be the next move?

A: First-of-all, the trains you are talking about, the scope of the trains whose contracts have been terminated is completely different from the present situation. During the COVID, as a cautious measure, the Ministry of Railways did some changes to the services. And the changes were needed in view of the ongoing atmosphere. Keeping in the quality of work and hygiene, a different scope of work was decided under which it was mandated to serve ready to eat food only. So, those contracts were of a different category. The contracts of the previous trains, which were not operational and were, kept in abeyance. So, such contracts were cancelled, whose scopes were quite different from the present scope. So, it will not have any impact on the ongoing financial year because these trains were not running due to which we didn’t anticipate any revenue from these trains. As far as how the environment is changing, the environment is changing, the travel pattern of people is changing, the way people eat, and drink is changing. People are now more curious and more sensitive. Given the quality, their demand has gone up and under it, as per the criteria set by the ministry, the IRCTC is providing services to them, the passengers, in the train. Keeping the same in the mind, we have also started the e-catering services and it is available from February 1, 2021, and it is growing continuously. We started it from just 52 stations and today we are providing e-catering food services at around 158 stations. 

Q: How is the response to the recently launched online bus ticketing facility at your portal? Daily how many tickets are you booking and how much of the market share you wish to capture and what time horizon?

A: I had told earlier as well that the online bus ticketing share that we have is very small in the overall online marketing. So, our portal is too big with an aim to aim to capture that share but we have made and attempt in this and gradually every day our booking is increasing. Currently, we have tied-up with two partners and when we will have a direct tie-up then our bookings will increase drastically, and we are making efforts for the purpose. If you want to know about booking from the bus segment, I can say about the commission. The IRCTC’s commission ranges between 10-15% on each booking. It is slightly low at places, depending upon the state. We have integration plans with 22 states through our partner and we have started it with 12 states and are starting it with three other states – currently, we have launched it on a pilot basis. Gradually our full services will be launched by March 21, 2021, and then we will be happy to share the numbers with you.

Q: You have strength in Rail Neer, where you have 14 plants at present. Going forward, how are you looking for this opportunity and what are the plans for Rail Neer? 

A: Currently, we have 14 plants in Rail Neer, and six plants are in pipeline of which two plants will be commissioned soon. One of the two plants is based in Una - earlier we were supplying to Punjab sector from Delhi and Hapur – and once we will have the sector in Una then we will be able to supply to Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, the particular area, where we were not able to supply Rail Neer will be covered. Similarly, our Vijaywada plant is upcoming; we also have an upcoming plant in Simhadri, Visakhapatnam as well as in Bhusawal. These plants will be commissioned soon. With the existing 14 plants, we were able to meet up to 62% of the requirement in the railways' requirement. But because of the COVID, our production level was a bit low because normal trains were not running, and trains were also not running on the pre-paid concept. Summers have started now and the requirement for water has also increased, so, the water business will do well. And, as the requirement for water has gone up so, the production of every plant has gone beyond 50%. The production level of the plants will go up gradually and new plants will be added to it. If these six plants will come into existence – for which we haven’t made any changes in our plans – then we will be able to fulfil 80-85% of the water requirement of Rail Neer in the railway premises. So, it has very good prospects in the future. 

Q: The other interesting development is that IRCTC has started air and rail tourism in the month of December. But how will you tap into the future tourism activity, especially in the budget hotel space and what are your plans on that front? Are you looking forward to some budget hotel segments, if yes, which areas or destinations will be attractive for the purpose?

A: Right now, I think, tourism activity will emerge very well. In budget tourism, we do many things, and the hotel is a part of it. The booking of the trains that we run under the budget/railway tourism is running full. All the trains, we have announced in the name of budget tourism, whether it is Pilgrims special train or Bharat Darshan train, they are running full. Apart from this, our rail tour packages will start as soon as normal trains operations will start. Secondly, we are also connected with budget hotels in which we are also constructing budget hotels and, on a commission basis we are selling different type of hotels on the commission basis through our portal. For it, we have made direct tie-ups with different hotels and have also signed an MoU with the Hotels Association of India, under which we have provided a very good commission structure to them. In fact, we have tied-up with 7,200 hotels or properties and they are live on our portal and there booking is available on our tourism portal. Apart from this, the budget hotels we are developing, and we are also running few hotels and they are in Puri, Ranchi and Delhi – the Rail Yatri Niwas, which has been converted into different chains. These are our existing budget hotels. We are developing our budget hotels in Lucknow and Khajuraho and we haven’t made any changes in their capacity structure and are providing all the supports that were provided earlier. The tender for the budget hotel in Kevadiya is at the finalization stage. We have already acquired the land for the budget hotel at Sabarmati. So, whatever plans we had with a little-bit delay during the COVID-period in the construction activity, we have moved on and things are back on track. So, very soon, we will have our budget hotel in the place.