The Indian Railway Catering And Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) a PSU of the Ministry of Railways, announced on 17 November that it will cancel the operations of both Lucknow-Delhi and Mumbai-Ahmedabad Tejas Express trains due to low occupancy.
“The management has decided to cancel all departures of IRCTC Tejas trains due to low occupancy levels resulting from coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.” said the statement issued by IRCTC. The company will review its decision after seeing the occupancy level of other trains of Indian Railways operating in both these routes, the statement added.
The Lucknow-New Delhi Tejas Express will remain cancelled from 23 November whereas Ahmedabad-Mumbai will remain cancelled from 24 November. The operation of these two ‘Tejas’ trains was suspended from 19th March 2020 due to spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
IRCTC posted a 67.3% decline in net profit to Rs 32.63 crore in Q2 September 2020 from Rs 99.82 crore in Q2 September 2019. The company’s total revenue declined nearly 80% to Rs 108.72 crore in Q2 September 2020 from Rs 535.13 crore in Q2 September 2019.
The revenue from catering segment slumped 93.5% to Rs 17.16 crore, revenue from internet ticketing segment declined 50.2% to Rs 58.29 crore, revenue from Rail Neer segment dropped 83.12% to 9.24 crore and revenue from tourism business tumbled 92.4% to Rs 3.85 crore in Q2 September 2020 over Q2 September 2019.
IRCTC started the Lucknow-Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express on October 4, 2019, and the Ahmedabad-Mumbai-Ahmedabad on January 19 this year. The two Tejas Express services are the first set of trains run by a corporate entity, IRCTC, a subsidiary of the Indian Railways. The third IRCTC-operated train, the Kashi Mahakal Express between Indore and Varanasi will however not begin its services yet.
IRCTC operates in four business segments, namely, internet ticketing, catering, packaged drinking water and travel & tourism.
The Government of India holds 87.4% stake in IRCTC as of 30 September 2020.
