IRCTC CoD (Cash On Delivery) Facility Enabled - Extra Charges Applicable

@thebigk • Oct 26, 2024

Oct 26, 2024

1.8K

IRCTC has now enabled the Cash On Delivery aka CoD facility for those who are not comfortable using their credit cards, debit cards or net-banking for buying tickets. The facility is however available on IRCTC authorised partner - BookMyTrain.com. But the freedom to pay for the tickets once you get the tickets in your hand comes at a cost. If you book a sleeper class ticket, you will have to pay Rs. 40 extra and for AC class tickets, the charges are Rs. 60 extra.

Indian Railways sell about 4.5 - 4.8 lakh railway tickets on daily basis and until now you had no option to opt for cash on delivery services. Anyone willing to buy the ticket had to use online payment mechanism. In India - that continued to be a big problem for several people. Lot of people are concerned about the misuse of their credit or debit cards and hence preferred booking the tickets through local agents or directly through IRCTC booking offices.

I'm not quite sure if this move will prove to be a good one for IRCTC. Flipkart had suffered a lot because of the fake orders placed on their website from several notorious buyers. If the miscreants just block the tickets for fun - it's going to be a huge pain for the travellers. Do you think IRCTC has taken a good step by allowing CoD transactions for the tickets?

Like 0 Replies 15

Replies

Welcome, guest

Join CrazyEngineers to reply, ask questions, and participate in conversations.

CrazyEngineers powered by Jatra Community Platform

Koushal Patel

@koushal-C6mEgp • Feb 3, 2015

I don't know who are the target audience. This move from railway is not required at all.

They should address some other existing issues like - IRCTC food quality, toilets in trains, Mobile charging devices broken. I strongly believe, there should be a facility of drinking water inside the coach as well. Have you seen rush in summer days for water at the stations where the train halts for less than 2-3 minutes!, its horrible. For the persons who sits in side upper seats and Upper and middle as well, to get down from seats to see which station it is at night, there should be an information system deployed in the boggie. There should be strict system to stop public loiter the stations. We are also living in 21st century where trains in Bihar and other places too are being looted, girls being misbehaved.

First concern should be to make the existing things work smoothly - After that any new system should be implemented.
Koushal Patel

@koushal-C6mEgp • Feb 3, 2015

I find the idea of sending tickets on COD as -
Do not pay attentions towards the schools which do not have a toilet for girl child, no standard faculty for students in schools, colleges and universities, fake campus placement.. And make new notifications of opening new schools! 😔

We people can go ahead doing our bit for betterment of the society, but there are some issues, which can not be entertained unless our Government makes a good note of this!
Ankita Katdare

@abrakadabra • Feb 3, 2015

I think this is a brilliant move. 😀 If IRCTC users mark CoD as their mode of payment, the time required to book the tickets will be significantly reduced and thus IRCTC could work better/faster in those over-crowded Tatkal hours. Those choosing CoD can book faster and go off the site and make way for other users. I hope the user experience will be improved by a lot in the days to come. It's high time something was done about this.

I personally wish for a 'seatmap display' feature on IRCTC to be seen for bookings made online as well as via ticket counters. This will be very beneficial for passengers as they can pick the seat(s)/berth(s) of their choice and also view the seating layout of the particular coach/train they intend to travel in. If airlines can give their passengers their choice of seats, why not Indian Railways?
Anoop Kumar

@anoop-kumar-GDGRCn • Feb 3, 2015

Ankita Katdare
the time required to book the tickets will be significantly reduced and thus IRCTC could work better/faster in those over-crowded Tatkal hours.
But COD / hard copy tickets never been applicable for Tatkal. How can they deliver ticket in 1 day 😉.
My view, this is totally backward move. In current system you can give anyone's cell phone number, even forwarded messages are acceptable. All you just have to have a valid proof. Even if you thing about old people who don't know how to operate mobile phone, TTE's are happy to operate themselves. (My gradma travelled self without any problem. She don't know SMS operation or English language.)

Koushal Patel
Government makes a good note of this!
I have doubt this move is from government. BookMytrain is a venture of Anduril Technologies .
Edit: Also IRCTC CRIS is a autonomous body. They are like railway contractor to manage on-line things.
Ankita Katdare

@abrakadabra • Feb 3, 2015

Anoop Kumar
How can they deliver ticket in 1 day 😉.
No one day delivery? 😲 Isn't that super sad? Why you no follow Flipkart/Amazon model? If you are finally launching it, why not bring it with a bang. We all know how crucial Tatkal is. Let's see. May be they will roll out the feature to Tatkal eventually.
Koushal Patel

@koushal-C6mEgp • Feb 3, 2015

Anoop Kumar
I have doubt this move is from government. BookMytrain is a venture of Anduril Technologies .
Edit: Also IRCTC is a autonomous body. They are like railway contractor to manage on-line things.
Anoop Kumar
I have doubt this move is from government. BookMytrain is a venture of Anduril Technologies .
Edit: Also IRCTC is a autonomous body. They are like railway contractor to manage on-line things.
How can you say that its not Government's move. You can not expect a single move in Railways without government's approval boss. It is the system of deploying a whole new system. Government has approved the move, no doubt for sure!
Koushal Patel

@koushal-C6mEgp • Feb 3, 2015

Ankita Katdare
I think this is a brilliant move. 😀
Yeah, it is a brilliant move for those you mentioned in the comment. There are some pros and cons about this system.
Pros as you said, and cons may be -
1. What if someone has faked the system - Any punishment for that? Who to be blamed? Why to spend money to track and catch the culprit?
2. If someone wants to cancel the ticket then? Will the system update that ASAP.

@Anyone, Please let me hear, what the exact process of booking is? Is it through Phone, lappy?
Vikram S Bargah

@vikram-s-EgXevn • Feb 3, 2015

Customers can book a ticket 5 days prior to commencement of journey.

There are huge changes taking place in railways working which one can in recent days.

Koushal Patel
IRCTC food quality
IRCTC has also launced a pilot project to book meals on wheels online through irctc website. though this project is launched initially just for those trains which did not had pantrycars (i.e. Weekely Trains)

Koushal Patel
there should be an information system deployed in the boggie
Indian railways has stared deploying audio speakers in Some Premium trains like Shatabdi , Rajdhani which tells passangers about upcoming station & halting time & welcoming new passangers onboard . though this facility is not applicable during night hours.

Indian railways has also put a notice on premium trains asking passangers to use charging ports during specific hours only as during night hours those ports will be disabled.

It takes time for a complete change. & we can feel some differences too .(like the online tatkal booking)

P.S.:
India's first CNG train for the Rewari-Rohtak section has been launched which will run on dual fuel i.e CNG & Diesel.
Koushal Patel

@koushal-C6mEgp • Feb 3, 2015

Vikram S Bargah
P.S.:
India's first CNG train for the Rewari-Rohtak section has been launched which will run on dual fuel i.e CNG & Diesel.
Good Move

Vikram S Bargah
Indian railways has also put a notice on premium trains asking passangers to use charging ports during specific hours only as during night hours those ports will be disabled.
I was talking about the broken devices for recharging the cellphones my friend!

Vikram S Bargah
though this facility is not applicable during night hours.
This is main issue for passengers like me! If I feel really very tired, I ask the person who brings the pillows and other thing to wake me up at a particular time. But it s quite risky! "It is not a good practice to share more than required information in Railways with any one."

Can you please share your thoughts why the meals provided in railways are so costly. I mean, you will have to spend 80 Rs for a simple meal?
Anoop Kumar

@anoop-kumar-GDGRCn • Feb 3, 2015

Koushal Patel
How can you say that its not Government's move.
Because, IRCTC (By CRIS) sells flight tickets, few days ago they started a E-commerce website (I can't find that portal). Why govt. would even bother about it. (Not sure thought about cab booking). No information on Indianrail.gov.in (official railway website, I might be wrong because this is always outdated site.)
I am not 100% but definitely 95%+ sure it's not from govt.
These COD ticket are known as I-ticket. You book the ticket they will deliver you by post. Now it will add facility be COD.
#-Link-Snipped-# : Amount will be credited to your account. I guess like wallet.

PS: Let's stick to COD though only. We all know facilities sucks in trains.
Koushal Patel

@koushal-C6mEgp • Feb 3, 2015

Anoop Kumar
Because, IRCTC (By CRIS) sells flight tickets, few days ago they started a E-commerce website (I can't find that portal). Why govt. would even bother about it. (Not sure thought about cab booking). No information on Indianrail.gov.in (official railway website, I might be wrong because this is always outdated site.)
I am not 100% but definitely 95%+ sure it's not from govt.
See my friend, For each and every thing, these companies require Government's approval. If someone wants to deploy a system, I don't believe, they can go ahead proposing directly to the Railways. As you might be knowing, there are tender openings for everything. So, I guess, COD is not exception.

Few days back, I was travelling from my home state Odisha towards Mumbai, and found few students from Some Engineering Colleges were on-boarded. They were doing some survey on a day time about the food quality and some other proposed methods. Some of the officials from IRCTC came and started shouting at them, asking who the hell gave you the permission to do such things here. In return, they showed necessary approval documents from Kolkata Railway division and their college Principal.

Railway officials are nothing but the govt authority who gives the rights to do lawful desired things. From this point, I can argue that, none of the affiliated company can not do anything of their own without the intervention of the Indian Railway officials.

Hence the point I want to make is - Requesting Railways to address the existing necessary general requirements/issues like clean toilets for passengers, Cleanliness in Railway stations (Yes, I must say, this can not be done without public support), providing drinking water in the railway coaches itself, providing enough securities. There are some stations even in district headquarters where people find themselves insecure due to lack of security forces.

I am not against any innovation, implementation of new things, but for the time being, there are more critical issues which need more attention from Railways than to provide COD.
Vikram S Bargah

@vikram-s-EgXevn • Feb 3, 2015

Koushal Patel
why the meals provided in railways are so costly
These Price are decided by Indian railways after Selecting the lowest bidding process.
You can get the latest catering tariffs #-Link-Snipped-#
Vikram S Bargah

@vikram-s-EgXevn • Feb 3, 2015

Vikram S Bargah
though this facility is not applicable during night hours.
Because Indian Railways do not want to disturb every passengers who are taking full benefits of railway mattress & berth 😀.

A Passenger is Himself responsible if he has reached to next station during night hours.
Vikram S Bargah

@vikram-s-EgXevn • Feb 3, 2015

Anoop Kumar
IRCTC (By CRIS)
IRCTC is Goverment of India Enterprise Under Ministry Of Railways . You can get the Flight booking & Cab Facilities in its #-Link-Snipped-# itself. Though Cab facilities are available only for Premium train customers . & can be booked only once you have booked the seat in specific trains.
Vikram S Bargah

@vikram-s-EgXevn • Feb 3, 2015

Koushal Patel
clean toilets for passengers
Indian Railways is well versed with the issues faced by the passangers & has already started taking initiatives in most of the areas as pilot projects to check its feasibility.
Some trains Like Sampark Kranti & saptkranti have persons deployed onboard to clean the toilets & coach while its moving.
I Think We should praise the initiatives taken by the respective authorities & give them some time to get it implemented on a mass scale.