Adani Enterprises, the flagship firm of billionaire Gautam Adani’s group, has bought a close to 30 per cent stake in Start Enterprises Pvt Ltd, which owns ‘Trainman’, the online train ticket booking platform.
Trainman is Adani group’s second investment in the travel booking and information segment. Founded by Vineet Chirania and Karan Kumar in 2011, Trainman is an Indian travel booking app that enables passengers to check the PNR (Passenger Name Record) status, predicts the possibility of getting a confirmed seat in case of a wait-list, and also provides real-time updates on seat availability, running status, time table, coach position, fare calculator, etc.
Last month, Adani Enterprises made an announcement that it has signed a pact to acquire 100 per cent of SEPL.
On Saturday, in a stock exchange filing Adani Enterprises said that Adani Digital Labs Pvt Ltd has bought a 29.81 per cent stake in SEPL for Rs 3.56 crore.
While last month, Adani Enterprises had described SEPL as “an online train booking and information platform,” on Saturday it described the firm as one into “e-commerce and website development.” The announcement led to a mini-controversy with Jairam Ramesh, the Congress general secretary suggesting that Adani’s takeover of Trainman may eventually result in the takeover of IRCTC – the Indian Railways’ ticketing and other services arm.
IRCTC issued a statement denying the allegation. IRCTC explained the e-ticketing business segment and said that around 14.5 lakh reserved tickets are booked on a daily basis in Indian Railways. Out of these almost 81 per cent are e-tickets and booked through IRCTC itself. Hence, there is no competition between IRCTC and its agents, including Trainman.
Trainman, being a B2C partner of IRCTC, contributes 0.13 per cent of total reserved ticketing. It was added that since these firms are integrated with IRCTC, overall, they help the customers in a smooth ticketing process.
