The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a subsidiary company of the Indian Railways, will now make available the facility of bus ticketing as well. The passengers will be able to book these tickets through IRCTC’s rail connect app. The busses will be operated to different destinations in 22 states and 3 union territories. The corporation will not charge any additional fee from the passenger for this.
At present, booking of more than 50,000 buses of the private operators and state road transport corporations is available for 22 states and three union territories.
Though a trial run of the bus ticket booking was launched in January, it couldn’t garner desired results due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Corporation has added new features to attract more users.
“Travellers now can book tickets to small cities or destinations, which were not part of the network. We will be adding more destinations in the future based on feedback from the passengers. Another significant feature, which IRCTC has introduced, is seat booking for intermediate point or location; short distance or a destination falling on a particular route. Earlier, the booking was allowed only from one point to another,” said IRCTC spokesperson Anand Jha.
Here’s where you can book tickets: The passengers, willing to travel by bus, can visit the website https://www.bus.irctc.co.in/home and book the tickets to their destination. The buses will be operated in almost all the states across the country.
According to the report, over 50,000 bus operators across the country are associated with IRCTC to work with the corporation. Under the new feature of online bus ticket booking, the passengers will be able to view a variety of buses- such as Volvo bus, AC bus, or non-AC bus- and select the bus service which best suits their journey considering amenities, routes, ratings, reviews, and bus images available.
Moreover, they will also be able to choose their pick-up and drop points and timings and finally book their journey at a reasonable price with the ongoing bank and e-wallet discounts too. However, all passengers are required to have the Aarogya Setu app on their mobile phones.
