Explore Business Standard
Travel booking major MakeMyTrip on Monday launched Seat Availability Forecast, providing a predictive view of when seats on a selected train are likely to sell out. The Gurugram-headquartered firm said its data shows that nearly 40 per cent of users book train tickets across multiple sessions, often over several days. Among these users, close to 70 per cent end up booking waitlisted tickets, simply because confirmed seats are no longer available by the time their plans firm up. Reserved train tickets in India open for booking 60 days ahead of departure. However, most travellers only finalise their plans much closer to the date, MakeMyTrip stated. "With demand patterns varying significantly from week to week, the window for confirmed bookings keeps shifting. In April, most high-speed trains were sold out around 13 days before the departure date. By May, due to rising demand, they were typically booked out more than 20 days before departure," the NASDAQ-listed company said. For ...
The Indian Railways offered a subsidy of Rs 59,837 crore on passenger tickets in 2019-20 and the concession still continues, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha on Wednesday. Vaishnaw shared the information in response to a question by Congress MP Anto Antony from Kerala regarding restoring pre-Covid concessions for different categories of railway passengers. "The Indian Railways always strives to provide affordable services to all strata of the society and gave a subsidy of Rs 59,837 crore on passenger tickets in 2019-20," the minister said. "This amounts to a concession of 53 per cent on an average to every person travelling on Railways. This subsidy is continuing for all passengers," he said. According to Vaishnaw, concessions beyond this subsidy amount are continuing for many categories like four categories of Persons with Disabilities (Divyangjans), 11 categories of patients and eight categories of students. About 18 lakh patients and the