IRCTC to offer online shopping services

Following the IT provisions such as Wi-Fi made in the Union Railway Budget 2013-14, another promising initiative seems to be maturing in the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) yard.

It is planning to start its online shopping operations - the Hindu Business Line quoted IRCTC managing director RK Tandon as saying, "We are discussing with existing firms in the e-commerce space to thrash out the details. This will help us monetize our registered user base of over Rs 2 crore".

Thus with the foray into the ecommerce space, food, online tickets, books, footwear, and mobile phones, furnishings, electronics are all likely to be made available on the IRCTC website. While IRCTC's own employees will man the front-end, the back-end will be outsourced.

Currently hotel booking and flight ticket booking services are being offered on the IRCTC website. For the new services, it has invited qualifying bids from companies in the e-commerce space for building and managing the retail platform.