Train tickets at petrol pumps! With the Railways deciding on sale of tickets at petrol pumps, long queues in front of reservation counters may become shorter.
NEW DELHI: Train tickets at petrol pumps! With the Railways deciding on sale of tickets at petrol pumps, long queues in front of reservation counters may become shorter.
The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation has tied up with Bharat Petroleum Corporation to launch an e-ticketing initiative to help people book tickets at BPCL outlets like petrol pumps and LPG distributor locations.
A Memorandum of Understanding for setting up e-ticketing facilities at BPCL outlets throughout the country will be signed by IRCTC Managing Director P K Goel and BPCL Executive Director (Retail) Sanjay Krishnamurti on Monday.
The service will initially be started at 38 locations in Delhi and Mumbai and will be extended "very quickly" to 80 locations, Goel said.
"Anybody can go to a nearest location, pay cash and take the ticket," he said adding that the initiative would make easy availability of tickets and remove the hardships to the people.
Leading hotel groups are joining hands with the Railways to build budget hotels across the country.
IRCTC has awarded land to private players to develop hotels in seven places on build, operate and transfer basis and refurbish the Rail Yatri Niwas at four places, including in New Delhi.
To be taken up on public-private-partnership, the budget hotels will be set up on railway land in Darjeeling, New Jaipaiguri, Lalgarh (Bikaner), Sealdah, Rameswaram, Udagamandalam (Ooty) and Jaisalmer.
The New Delhi-based Zoom Royal Orchid Consortium will build hotels at Darjeeling, New Jaipaiguri and Lalgarh, while Mumbai's GL Hotels and Pan India Paryatan will be involved in constructing the hotel in Sealdah.
Signet Hotels Consortium will take up the assignment at Rameswaram, Ooty and Jaisalmer.
IRCTC is selecting players to construct budget hotels in 13 places, Goel said.
These will come up at Madurai, Vijayawada, Secunderabad, Chandigarh, Mumbai (Carnac Bunder), Tirupati, Kanyakumari, Nagpur, Pune, Agra, Habibganj (Bhopal), Jodhpur and Udaipur.
Letters of Allotment have been given to the Taj Group to refurbish the Rail Yatri Niwas at New Delhi. The Patna-based Sujata Hotel would do the job at Puri and Ranchi and Visakhapatnam-based Hotel Meghalaya at Howrah.
While the private players constructing budget hotels will be given a 30-year period to run them, the Rail Yatri Niwas buildings have been allotted to private players for 15 years, the IRCTC MD said.
"The budget hotel proposals with regard to other sites will get activated as and when the site was made available," he said, adding that the focus this year would be on the budget hotels.
Goel declined to go into financial details, saying amounts would vary based on the location, investment required to refurbish and the size of the hotels.
Observing that the focus was not on making money but to enhance amenities for the public, Goel said that some well known foodchains like Nirulas, Mcdonalds and Bikanerwala have also evinced interests in opening food plazas at the New Delhi railway station.
To decongest platforms, he said trolleys selling food articles at stations would be converted into stalls.
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