Irctc Share Price

About IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd.)

A central public enterprise under the Ministry of Railways, Government of India, Indian Railway Catering & Tourism Corporation Ltd. is a “Mini Ratna (Category-I)” enterprise that was incorporated on the 27th of September, 1999 under the Companies Act, 1956. It is one of the biggest companies in India. The idea of this enterprise was to create an extended arm for the Indian Railways to help upgrade and manage both catering and hospitality services at stations, on trains and other related locations in a professional and efficient manner. The sole aim of IRCTC is to promote both domestic as well as international tourism through the development of budget stays, special tour packages, efficiently available information, commercial publicity alongside creating a global reservation system.

The IRCTC website sees the most traffic and is one of the maximum visited websites in Asia. It is maintained & developed by Centre for Railway Informations Systems (CRIS) & Broadvision powers the ticket bookings. IRCTC’s next generation e-ticketing system can book 7,000 tickets per minute. This was a mere 2,000 in just 2014. Now a sale of 5 lac tickets per day with a login of 7.2 million everyday and 25 million every month is the given average. The website can be logged into and simultaneously be used by over 1.5 Lac users at one time.

The paid up capital of the company is Rs. 160 crores and authorised capital is Rs. 250 crores. The IRCTC share price has always been on the rise ever since it was incorporated into the market. It is a registered company and the corporate office is located in New Delhi.

Core Activities & Products

1. Catering & Hospitality: Being one of the largest catering and hospitality companies of India, with a vast gamut of businesses spread across passenger trains, railway stations as well as station premises and other areas, the company is relied upon for various services and products. 

Catering is divided into three broad categories - Mobile Catering, OCS (Other Catering Services) & E-catering. With pantry services in over 460 long journey trains, the company also provides Train Side Vending (TSV) for shorter journeys in trains that do not have a pantry. It has been redesigning all the base kitchens, standardising them with modern equipment to provide quality meals as per food safety standards. Each kitchen also has a live feed and trains are monitored, so regular checks can be made. IRCTC is also building executive lounges across train stations. E-catering is the latest addition, where passengers can place orders through IRCTC’s online portal, getting the food delivered to their seat/berth. 

Retirement rooms and budget hotels (Rail Yatri Niwas and BNR) are coming up, with a few already running.

2. Internet Ticketing: The entirety of online train bookings has been moved to the IRCTC online portal. Even if you book through an agent or another middleman website, you are redirected to the IRCTC portal.

3. Travel & Tourism: IRCTC is the company that has been mandated by the Government of India to take charge of all rail based tourism in the country. They have made the necessary upgrades and professionalised the rail based tourism and over the last 20 years, been the catalyst in the promotion and development of the rail tourist in India. To do this, IRCTC operates a website as well as a mobile app that brings easy access and booking to a plethora of service offerings like rail, hotel, retiring room, food packages and more. They also offer complete end to end holiday packages. It has recently also started air ticketing.

4. Rail Neer: Rail Neer is an IRCTC product - a branded packaged drinking water for all that are commuting via train. It is processed, purified and bottled at IRCTC automatic plants, with no human handling, making sure that all the water is of the highest quality, manufactured and delivered under full control and supervision of IRCTC. At present there are 14 operational plants across India with 6 upcoming plants, ensuring production of 18.4 Lac bottles per day.

Board of Directors

1. Chairman & Managing Director (Additional Charge): Smt. Rajni Hasija

2. Director (Finance): Sh. Ajit Kumar

3. Director (Catering Services): Sh. Debashis Chandra

4. Director (Tourism & Marketing): Smt. Rajni Hasija

5. Government Director: Shri Neeraj Sharma

6. Government Director: Shri V. Shanker

7. Independent Director: Shri Vinay Kumar Sharma

8. Independent Director: Shri Namgyal Wangchuk

Key Executives

1. Chairman & Managing Director (Additional Charge): Smt. Rajni Hasija

2. Director (Finance): Sh. Ajit Kumar

3. Director (Catering Services): Sh. Debashis Chandra

4. Director (Tourism & Marketing): Smt. Rajni Hasija

5. Chief Vigilance Officer: Dr. Parag Agrawal

6. Group General Manager (Internet Ticketing): Sh. Sunil Kumar

7. Group General Manager (Procurement): Sh. Sanjeev Mishr

8. Group General Manager (Tourism): Sh. Rajesh Kumar

9. Group General Manager (Services): Sh. Awdesh Kumar

10. Group General Manager (Finance): Sh. Gaisingam Kabui

11. Group General Manager (HRD): Sh. Sandip Trivedi

12. Group General Manager (IT-2): Sh. Sudheer V.C

13. General Manager (Tourism): Dr. Lokiah Ravikumar

14. General Manager (Mobile Catering Services): Sh. Rajesh Rana

15. General Manager (Railneer Projects): Sh. Saket Chand Srivastava

16. General Manager (Other Catering Services): Sh. Sudhir Warrier

17. Company Secretary: Smt. Suman Kalra

Presence

1. Fourteen Rail Neer Plants at Nangloi-Delhi, Danapur-Bihar, Palur-Tamil Nadu, Ambernath-Maharashtra, Amethi (Uttar Pradesh), Parassala-, Tamil Nadu, Bilaspur (Chhattisgarh) Hapur (Uttar Pradesh), Sanand- Gujarat, Mandideep-Madhya Pradesh, Jagiroad-Assam, Maneri-(Madhya Pradesh), Nagpur, (Maharashtra) and Sankrail-Kolkata

2. Eleven Base Kitchens at located at New Delhi, Howrah, Ahmedabad, Patna, Mumbai Central, Mumbai CST, Ballarshah, Nagpur, Balasore, Sealdah and Kharagpur Jn 5 Zonal Offices, namely, New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Secunderabad

3. Five Zonal Offices at New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai & Secunderabad

4. Ten Regional Offices at Lucknow, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Bhopal, Ahmadabad, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Patna, Ernakulam and Bangalore

5. One Internet Ticketing Office at New Delhi

6. One Tourism office at New Delhi.

Performance in Various Sectors

Some sectors that the company has performed well which has resulted in the rise of the IRCTC stock price are mentioned below.

1. Finance: It is a very profitable company that generates generous and consistent revenue across all four of its segments - water, catering, ticketing and tourism.

2. Business Strategy: It has a sole monopoly in the rail sector as it is mandated by the Government of India to take charge of all rail based tourism in the country. As a result, it is very successful as there is no competition.

3. Marketing: Being the only player in the segment, IRCTC does not require PR, advertising or any marketing activities to promote the services and products. Word of mouth and customer loyalty is a given.

4. Generic: IRCTC is famous as a stalwart in Indian Railways. It has gained popularity over the years and is looking at expensive growth in the future.

CSR and Sustainability

As per the company vision to be the leading provider of highest quality services in the travel and tourism sector, the CSR and and SD policy is,

VISION

‘To remain a frontrunner for impacting the lives of socially and economically deprived and working towards a sustainable, inclusive developmental change over a horizon of time through the corporate social responsibility activities at IRCTC.’

MISSION

‘IRCTC will establish itself as a frontrunner in the CSR projects taken up under the Schedule VII of the Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013. IRCTC through its CSR & Sustainability initiatives shall endeavour to achieve the value behind CSR & Sustainability Policy.’

The CSR themes over the last few years have been:

1. 2019 - 20 : School Education, Healthcare & Nutrition

2. 2020 - 21 : Health & Nutrition

3. 2021 - 22 : Health & Nutrition, with special focus on Covid related measures including setting up makeshift hospitals and temporary Covid-Care Facilities

4. 2022 - 23 : Health & Nutrition

The objective of the CSR activities is to:

1. Find and take part in programmes that are beneficial to the local communities in and around its area of operations & enhance the quality of life as well as economic well-being of the locals over a prescribed time period.

2. Promote as well as ensure a very inclusive growth of the society with emphasis on the development of the weaker sections & backward districts of India.

3. Ensure the sustainability of the past CSR projects through periodic monitoring and making necessary upgrades.

4. Generate through CSR initiatives, a community goodwill for the company while helping reinforce a positive & socially responsible image of IRCTC as a company.

Criticism

IRCTC has received criticism as they have in the past failed to maintain privacy of all the user data that they collect from passengers who are looking to make bookings for travel and tourism. There have been multiple leaks and exposures as well as shared with the government for promotional content and demographic targeting.

COVID-19 Impact

The COVID-19 pandemic put a halt to all tourism and travel with the ban across the country. As a result, many of the trains and catering services were paused temporarily and costs for implementing safety guidelines increased, affecting the company majorly. But with the opening of the pandemic, the company is up and running faster than ever, with their earnings up and new services and products being launched, which is taking it towards normalcy.

Future Prospects

IRCTC is a very successful company that is essentially the only sole enterprise operating in the railway services segment under the Government of India. It has been known since its inception to have been profitable, deft free and contribute to the Indian economy and GDP. The Initial Public Offering made by the company in 2019 was a success. While the pandemic has created a difficulty due to the nationwide ban on tourism and travel, the company team, sources and the government are promising high returns as we walk past the pandemic.

Did You Know!

Here are some cool facts about IRCTC that many wouldn’t know. For starters, did you know that for every female booking, the IRCTC website and app algorithm makes sure that at the very least one other female is present in the same bogey. A female this way never gets to travel alone with five men. 

Also the website at login provides users with different captcha while normal login and while tatkal login to control the traffic and keep it comparatively low during tatkal bookings.

Another interesting fact about IRCTC is that it is the only other company in all of India that has its own trains, apart from the Indian Railways. The Tejas Express launched in May 2017 travels four popular routes and the Kashi Mahakal Express travels between Varanasi and Indore.

Initial Public Offering

The IPO of IRCTC was released on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) in September, 2019, as well as listed on BSE, where the base IRCTC share price was set at Rs. 315 and Rs. 320 per share. The face value per IRCTC stock price was Rs. 10 while the lot size was 40 shares. The issue size of shares of Rs. 10 was 2,01,60,000 shares which aggregates to Rs. 645.12 crores and these were all offered for sale. This IPO was promoted by the President of India acting through the Ministry of Railways. Overall, the IPO was very successful, after which the company released 13% of its holdings to the public.

Equity Shares

IRCTC equity shares are available on the NSE where they were listed in 2019. The total revenue of the company FY19 was Rs. 1956.66 crores which was a rise of 24.66% from revenue FY18 and over 23% for each fiscal year after that. The company declared an interim dividend of Rs. 7.65 per equity share, aggregating to nearly Rs. 122.37 crores. The company has been debt free and profitable ever since its incorporation in 1999. As a matter of fact, they have a track record of strong annual returns to investors and shareholders.

In 2019, when the IRCTC shares were launched, the initial offering was followed by the Government of India reducing their holdings to 87%, while the remaining shares were made available to public trading. In December, 2020, the Indian Government reduced their holdings further by 20%, reducing its holdings to only 67%, which means that now 33% of the company holdings are available to the public on NSE for trade purposes.

Annual Financial Summary