Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is a subsidiary of the Indian Railways which handles online ticketing, tourism and catering. As a major move, IRCTC CMD Mr. A K Manocha in his latest statement stated about linking of AADHAR to the ticketing system. The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is made mandatory for all types of reservations.
For every individual passenger, who wish to travel by train in India has to furnish his AADHAR details at the time of booking. Both Counter reservations and Online reservations will require the 12-digit unique identity number.
Till date only online reservations were using the AADHAR details as a proof for availing some of the concessions offered by IRCTC. Around 50 categories are offered for passengers to avail the concessions.
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Now with the decision to make AADHAR mandatory will be a lot useful to the Indian Railways in many ways. Insurances, Concessions and Identity will be now more accurate as compared to the existing system.
From December 2016, this system will be enforced on full scale. As per the details available it is expected that around 27 lakh passengers avail the insurance offered by IRCTC at 10 paisa to 90 paisa per trip. The AADHAR details provision will enable the Indian Railways to be more effective in utilizing the details for Insurance purposes.
Moreover, the concessions like for Handicapped, Senior Citizens, etc., the AADHAR details will be useful to the fuller extent for confirmation.
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This will also be helpful in eradicating the agents and middle person’s online ticket business. In most of the cases these agents or mediators are selling online tickets in a wrong way. Hence, this step will put an end to those tactics.
Passengers while travelling, their reservations will be counter checked by the Ticket collectors (TCs) with the devices that are provided by the Railways. Hopefully this will bring a new change in the digitalization process of Indian Railways and serve the citizens better.
