New Delhi: The issue of booking tickets of passengers from April 14 (Tuesday) by Indian Railways is likely to be addressed in anticipation of resuming services on priority.

Sources said that travelers can suspend booking of tickets till there is no clearness from the government on continuing trains. The issue of advance booking came up in a high-level survey meeting on issues identified with transport and production network on Sunday.

“The choice about extending the lockdown and permitting all services and at what scale will be reported soon.” But there is not really any sign about the activity of all traveler trains for which individuals have just reserved tickets. Railroads should manage this.

Railways, which continue to book tickets in advance after 14 April, have been surprised to see that another government-owned transport unit, Air India, has suspended booking of tickets till 30 April.

On Sunday, a media report highlighting the railways’ subsidiary, IRCTC, never coming back if the facility is canceled even if the trains are canceled is removed from the debate.

In an explanation, the Railway PSU stated that it provides the facility to book e-tickets for train journeys and anyone can make a booking using a mobile phone at home, office or even round the clock.

“For this facility, IRCTC charges a nominal facility fees which is Rs 15 for each ticket for non-AC class booking and Rs 30 for each ticket for AC and first-class tickets. A ticket can carry a maximum of six passengers and is charged according to the ticket and not per passenger.

To provide this facility, IRCTC has to be driven to increase server operating expenses, improve customer convenience and facilitate chatbot such as user experience, artificial intelligence based PNR confirmation prediction and capacity.

“There is a certain cost to run these facilities even without booking a ticket. The daily maintenance cost of the ticketing operation is Rs 32 lakh. The annual expenditure on this account is 125 crores.

It is added that when a train is canceled, the passenger gets a full refund of fare. The facility fee is not refunded which is nominal and is used for day to day maintenance and upgrading of ticketing facility.