In a railway budget that lacked the pizazz of Laloo Prasad Yadav's announcement of Internet and DTH on trains (which never did happen, did it?), current Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee sought to be less entertaining, and more practical: among the sops handed to consumers was a reduction in service charges for buying a ticket online from IRCTC, arguably the largest e-commerce service in India: -- Sleeper Class tickets: lower by 33.3% from Rs. 15 to Rs. 10 -- AC Class tickets: lower by 50% from Rs. 40 to Rs. 20 Now while the amount might appear to be small, one needs to take into account the scale at which IRCTC operates: For example, in August 2009, the IRCTC did a total of 5,539,035 transactions, which amounted to Rs. 4,497,142,510 ($97.24 million). Arbitrarily assuming a ratio of 1:7 (AC: Sleeper Class), that would mean approximately 692,379 AC Class tickets booked, and 4,846,656 Sleeper class tickets. This would amount to a reduction in service charges revenue of Rs. 24.23 million ($0.523 million) from Sleeper Class tickets, and Rs. 13.84 million (0.298 million) in AC Class ticket revenue. Please keep in mind that this is just an indicative calculation based on an assumption. IRCTCs transactions have increased since: in January 2010, they reported 6,547,581 successful transactions, of a total of 8,458,526 transactions. Other Digital Related Announcements: -- The railways' tie-up with the post office doesn't appear to have worked out. Instead, the railways plans to add E-ticket vans to Government Medical College Hospitals, Courts, Universities,…
