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Now, users need IRCTC registration to book tickets via 3rd party websites

Arun Prabhudesai — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:40:14 +0000

On one hand IRCTC is launching various initiatives to make it easier for consumers to book train tickets online and on the other hand they are coming up with rules that will make life difficult for consumers.

According to a Cleartrip post published couple of days back, it has now become mandatory for for users to have a IRCTC registration even if they are booking through 3rd party online train ticket booking websites.

Millions of users (including myself) book train tickets from Cleartrip, MMT and others just ensure a better experience and less chances of failed transactions. The IRCTC booking site is not only complex and slow, but they sometimes have a fail ratio of nearly 1 in every 3 transactions. Most users pay extra amount on 3rd party sites for smooth transactions.

But with this mandate coming from IRCTC, it will increase the percentage of failed transactions even on third party sites. These sites will now have to do deep integration with IRCTC database. The users will have to give their IRCTC login details on the booking website, and probably the OTA will have to populate the passenger details in IRCTC database. If for some reason, IRCTC is choked or down, users will not be able to book tickets.

I assume IRCTC have come up with this mandate because, now even a SMS from IRCTC can be used as a virtual ticket to travel. This integration will allow IRCTC to obtain full details of consumers enabling them to send out booking SMS.

Given that Cleartrip train ticket booking is down, it looks like the integration is going currently happening and IRCTC has not given much time to 3rd party websites to integrate.

I for one think that this is absolutely unnecessary and IRCTC could have done without it. I would be interested in knowing what users think about this!

Reducing traffic overload – Only the travelers can do it!

guest — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 11:54:58 +0000

As a young basket-baller during mid 70’s, I often used to get the opportunity of visiting Bombay (now Mumbai) from Bangalore and play in tournaments in Matunga. And once you are in Bombay, you can’t resist going to the famous VT Station. It was here that when I used to stand on the balcony of the VT station from where you could see almost all the railway lines ending at VT station itself, I would see a local train coming in almost every alternate minute and terminating at VT station. The moment the train stopped, out came a large swarm of people, in thousands perhaps, and quickly moved towards the exit. At the same time, another swarm of people, waiting on the platform, got into the train and within minutes the train departed to some unknown destination. And then another train came and went, then another and another, it was a non-stop inflow and outflow of thousands of people to and from the VT station. Often I used to observe this pattern of people movement from one location to another and wonder as to from where are they coming and to where are they going and why?

Fast forward to today’s Bangalore. When I stand near the side of any main road, I see a road full of vehicles each trying to out beat the other. Every inch of road space is filled with vehicles till there is no more space left. It’s like water getting filled in a canal. It’s no different in other metropolitan cities of India. Once again, I get the same question in my mind; from where are they coming, going where and why? Is there a solution to this mad traffic at all? Will road expansions and traffic streamlining solve the problems at all? My thoughts on the reasons and possible ways to explore solutions:

Why does someone venture to travel?

Of course, there could be hundred reasons for someone to venture out of his/her house and travel towards another part of the city. But if we want to identify at least a few major but commonly occurring needs, they could be:

Adults going to work
Children going to school/college
Family goes to cinema/shopping/functions/visit relatives, friends
People going to airport/railway/bus stations

As the concept of finding a house or place of work or getting admitted into a school or college has rarely any importance on proximity, it is a common practice for people to travel from one part of the city to another for one or more reasons mentioned above. People travel from North to South and vice versa. It is quite natural that the criss-crossing of vehicles choke the central part of the city.

Another interesting phenomenon is the setting up of large establishments employing large work force at one outskirt location of the city. For example some of the large IT companies have workforce exceeding 15,000 setting up their campus say in electronic city of Bangalore. Employees from all parts of the city start moving towards electronic city simultaneously in the morning and converge on to the last few miles of road at the same time thus causing a literal choking of the entire stretch of road. I call this chicken’s neck and it takes just one blockage on this road to disrupt the entire movement of traffic. This also results in huge loss of working hours to the affected companies.

The city authorities could keep demolishing buildings including shops, houses etc. and keep expanding roads but it will only further increase traffic for all those who have earlier given up traveling will start venturing and more will move in too. And some day when all houses and shops have been demolished and all roads fully expanded, we may have a city full of broad and nice roads, flyovers and metros but with no one living inside the city!

Home-Swap-Home

It’s human to expect someone else to solve my problems. And we keep waiting for that to happen eternally. Is there some way the traveler himself can contribute towards reducing his traveling needs so that it contributes to the overall reduction in traffic density, even if it is only 10% less?

Why not look at simply swapping homes and moving in to locations that would reduce traveling by at least 30% – 50% on a daily basis? As seen in the diagram, suppose resident – 1 staying in the north part of the city has two traveling needs towards south of the city and similarly the opposite for resident-2 then would it reduce the traveling significantly if these two residents swap homes? Now whether the swap is only on rental basis and how do we arrive at rental figures and agree for a differential payment based on which rent is higher or lower is a separate process.

If people show the interest to explore this concept then there could be incentives provided by the city authorities, employers and others to encourage this. Also real estate web sites like say magic bricks or similar ones could have a separate section for swap homes people. Reduction in travel will directly contribute to lesser pollution and a better and greener city. The endeavor should be to encourage people to live in the proximity of maximum of their daily needs and as far as possible avoid crossing across the city on daily basis.

Does this sound like a crazy idea?

[This post has been written by Mr. M.A. Parthasarathy. He has over 30 years experience in field of I.T and has won many accolades through-out his career. You can get in touch with him at partha.ma@gmail.com]

5 things Government needs do to promote the Tourism Industry in India

Kaushambi — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 06:44:00 +0000

It’s always easy to have armchair discussions about what the government should do and what it isn’t doing. Notwithstanding that, here are a few things we’d love to suggest to the tourism ministry, because we can’t help but say again and again that India can make a lot of money off its tourism wealth but it we are simply letting opportunities slip from our hands.

Allow corporate sponsorship for heritage buildings

One of the biggest charms of Indian tourism is its architecture and wealth of historic monuments. And there’s a long list of heritage monuments that are still sitting in squalid environments.

An effective solution for this would be to outsource the maintenance and exterior lighting of the heritage monument to corporate giants in return for some branding opportunity at the monument.

Many think this is outright commercialisation. But this is a much better option than leaving it an abandoned state and let it decay.

Create experiences, not sightseeing spots

If you closely notice, many tourist destinations around the world are merely made up of created experiences. Be it botanical gardens, architectural monuments, backwaters, the Himalayas, the tourism ministry should see the potential of a place to attract tourists rather than merely banking on the natural beauty of a place.

The tourism industry which includes the government and private players, need to manipulate destinations as experiences and not sightseeing point alone.

For instance, steps can be taken to make the tour replete with tour guides, activities for the children, culinary tours, interactivity for the tourist with the culture of the place etc.

Build great roads and access points

It would completely wrong on anyone’s part to simply say ‘Create better infrastructure’. This is a very generic statement. But it is critical to build good roads and approach points to a certain tourist destination.

For foreign and domestic tourists alike, a bumpy ride with potholes and a punctured tire only to reach an exotic Indian destination is no good.

Packaged train travel, easy bus connections and safe car hire services with knowledgeable personnel combines with great freeways and highways may sound utopian but are critical features for an unmatched tourist experience.

Aggressive tourism marketing strategies

Many people seem to be having a problem with exoticizing India to the West but at some point if that strategy allows for the raking in of moolah, then why not? We’re not promoting India as the land of snakes and charmers anymore, but the tourism ministry should surely pursue aggressive online and other marketing strategies to promote India as a must-visit location. Whether it is broadcasting ‘Incredible India’ campaigns abroad, holding tourism seminars or offering Indian locations with facilities to promote foreign film productions in the country. Aggressive marketing is absolutely critical to be seen and heard well.

Sell niche tourism areas separately

India is currently in a position where it can make a cash cow out of selling customized experiences, luxury spa sessions, rare animal sanctuaries, religious pilgrimage tours and extreme Himalaya tours.

With too many points of differentiation available, Indian tourism should focus on how it has something on offer for everyone in every category with all budgets. India on shoestring, India in luxury, the royal India, urban India, the common man’s India, historical India and much more.

The way information is packaged and distributed can go a long way in improving tourist traffic in the country.

Although the government has already started making a lot of improvements in this area, we still have a long way to go to let tourism alone generate significant revenue for the country.

We need to capitalize on India as a destination where the royal Bengal tiger, a common labourer, a few millionaires, religious dichotomies, exotic culinary treasures and some of the most expensive spas of the world co-exist. Now, that’s quite a challenge, isn’t it?

Do you have any pointers to add?

5 iPhone apps to better familiarize foreigners with India

Kaushambi — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 09:24:59 +0000

It’s only natural that when foreign nationals visit India either for business or for leisure, they’re going to arm themselves with utility oriented information that they need to travel within the country. This would include apps for finding taxis in India, maps of India, metro train apps, ATM locators, currency converters and the likes.

But in order to go one step ahead and travel within India with complete ease and panache, foreigners coming to India should download the following 5 iPhone apps.

5 iPhone apps to better familiarize foreigners with India

India Menu Interpreter

Although most Indian menus are available in English with details of ingredients listed below, there are many remote, rural and roadside shacks in India that still can’t boast of such tourist friendliness. For foreign nationals, ingredients of Indian menus can be quite intimidating. Get the India Menu Interpreter app to do the job for you. Previously titled Hurry with the Curry, this app presents an exhaustive guide to Indian restaurant dining, tells you what goes into your favorite Indian dishes and helps you sort out the tikka’s from the tandoori’s.

You can search food items though this app through image references and alphabetical indexing. The India Menu Interpreter app will also help you with eating etiquette in India, covering topics like Eating with Your Fingers, How to Order, Kid Friendly Foods and Healthy Choices amongst many others.

Buy Now

Lingolook India

Forget typing in Google Translate and getting your Hindi pronunciations right. Lingolook India is especially useful because of its powerful audio element with an Indian female voice translating your requirements into Hindi. It hasn’t been called the Best iPhone app for Travelers in 2009 by the Travel + Leisure Magazine for nothing.

Through more than 300 essential audio translations and more than 500 essential phrase and word flashcards, you can speak Hindi with perfect pronunciations and pull out the Hindi equivalents of the exact words that you need. Phrases segregated in categories like Essentials, Food & Drink, Shopping, Travel and Services make it very easy for the user to look up the right word at the right time.

Buy Now

India Culture Guide

As a foreign national, imagine if you are home staying with an Indian family or if you are attending a private dinner. How will you react if the Indian hostess keeps on insisting you to take a second helping even if you can’t eat a single morsel? Answering many such awkward, tacky yet practical questions about Indian social and business etiquette, the India Culture Guide is a must have for all foreigners traveling to India. Whether you need to be well informed about the way greetings and business cards are exchanged in India, how to sit appropriately for Indian business dinners, the unsaid rules of gift giving or how to handle cutlery with Indian food at a private home, this app will answer every question.

This app has more than 150 usable reference terms greetings and conversations, names of people and occupations, holidays and celebrations, religious protocols, common expressions, communication styles, standard business terms and much more. This app being produced by Dean Foster Associates makes it even more useful because they have been a premier cross-cultural training organization for international businesses from several decades now.

Buy Now

My City My Way

Equally useful for locals and foreign travelers alike, My City My Way India provides information for 11 Indian cities in 50 essential categories that include dining, popular attractions and tourism, shopping, nightlife, best events around town, transportation, local secrets and much more.

This app claims to update itself by using real time data and flouts its USP of being a hub of information instead of having to download separate apps for each category.

You can use the built in GPS of your device to allow this app to throw up insights of what’s the best thing you can do nearby in a particular city.

The best part about it? It’s free!

Download Now

TripAdvisor

Once you have an app like My City My Way which gives you exhaustive details about travel within India, a more generic app like TripAdvisor will be useful to get reviews of millions of other foreign tourists for a certain hotel, spa or an entertainment destination in India. Not much needs to be said about TripAdvisor, a brand synonymous with a complete travel portal.

From getting the best information about flights, to photographs of specific areas to the ‘Near Me Know’ feature to discover options according to your geographical location, the iPhone app for TripAdvisor will act like a good old familiar back up for all foreign nationals travelling to India.

Download Now

So if you are foreigner traveling in India, and are not much aware of Indian way of doing things, do arm your iPhone with these apps and we are sure you will have a much smoother and better Indian experience!

5 great apps for International Business Travellers!

Arun Prabhudesai — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 16:06:00 +0000

Traveling for business is one area that requires maximum amount of information, planning and co-coordinating – whether it is bagging the best priced ticket, getting a good hotel deal, checking last minute flight cancellations, knowing how far the airport is located from your hotel or how much will a dinner for your client will cost you at a foreign destination.

Here are a few apps that will serve you well if you travel internationally for your business.

Tripit

Perfect for iPhone, Blackberry and Android platforms, Tripit is a free and readily available executive assistant for travel. If you’ve always ended up wasting time in sending cumbersome information such as confirmed flight numbers, taxi pick up details, terminal numbers, arrival or departure gates, frequent flyer details back home or to someone who is going to receive you, you have many reasons to rejoice.

This handy app will assimilate and collate all this information to create a master itinerary that you can share with everyone you need to.

Business Traveler’s Passport Series

No more will you have be worried about memorizing cultural codes, greeting phrases and metric scales of the country that you are going to be visiting on business. Confused about how to tip a cab driver in Malaysia? Or what business deal etiquette to follow in Japan during a tea ceremony? This paid iPhone app will make these intricacies less intimidating. The interface of this app is very text heavy. You might want to start referring to it a few days before you commence your business trip.

Around Me

Around Me app is best used when you are travelling on business because of the quick and relevant search results that it can throw up. When you’re away in a foreign land on business, chances are that you may not have much time to wander off by yourself for too long. In spare time between presentations or seminars, you’d love to know which are the best places in and around your location where you can get great coffee, great shopping, hospitals, banks, gas stations and much more, wouldn’t you?

This free app will also tell you exactly how far your preferred service provider is.

Wi-fi Finder

It’s amazing how much money you can save on internet with this free iPhone app when you’re on business travel, unless of course you’re going to bill it all up to your company! You might be inviting extravagant expenses if you’ve not activated data services on your Internet carrier stick in advance.

Going manually from one spot to the other or asking around for a free wi fi zone on an airport or a café can be pretty taxing. So why not let this app come to your rescue and do the needful?

Travel Money Monkey

You were anticipating a money app to be featured on this list, weren’t you? And here it is! The edge that this paid iPhone app bears over all others is that it isn’t just a currency converting app. It covers the entire gamut of giving you the best foreign exchange rates, ordering in your currency, select your payment mode and even comparing currency rates. This could be heavenly for a business executive whose flights and itinerary is unpredictable and who doesn’t carry much foreign exchange in advance.

You could also look up health vaccination rules, visa formalities, taxi etiquette, expense reporting and a host of others things that you would encounter while you are travelling internationally for business… Sky is the limit for the variety of apps available for business travel.

India remains most challenging country for Expats!

Arun Prabhudesai — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 10:50:11 +0000

There is no doubt that India is one of the toughest countries to live for expats – and the recently released Expat Explorer survey conducted by HSBC reveals exactly that. Among the 31 countries surveyed, expats have ranked India as the toughest country to live based on their experience of about 30 different parameters. The HSBC survey findings are based on survey of 3,385 expats answering questions on life overseas.

Expats experience in India on various parameters:

India’s best ranking is only a modest 10th on 2 parameters – “Social Life” and “Learning the local language”. The latter is easier because India has plenty of people who speak English, making it easier for expats to learn the local language. Also, unlike most middle east countries, India does not pose too many restrictions on social gatherings, parties and night-life ensuring that India is ranked better on “Social Life” aspect

On the other hand India ranked 25^th or below on 11 parameters – and lowest at 31^st on 2 parameters – Setting up utilities & Fitting in new culture.

I am surprised though with some of the findings of HSBC survey if you see some of the countries at the top of the list of being friendly with expats (Expat Experience parameter). Thailand comes at number 1 position followed by Canada and South Africa.

List of Top 10 countries for expat friendliness

The above chart is for expat experience in foreign country alone and I am surprised that United states ranks a lowly 10^th while Thailand is ranked the highest on expat experience. It is also interesting to note, that most of the countries in top 10 are smaller developing nations. The worst countries on friendliness apart from India (31^st) are Russia (30^th), United Kingdom (29^th), China (28^th) and Qatar (27^th).

If you consider things like Income, house, Cars, holidays, domestic help etc, which are segregated under “economies” in the survey, India does rank a modest 16th, just behind United States. The Best country for expats from “Economies” perspective is Saudi Arabia, while the worst country is Italy!

You can check out the entire Expat Explorer survey here!

Book Indian Railways tickets through Mobile using Paymate, Ngpay & Atom

Arun Prabhudesai — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 10:53:46 +0000

Booking Train Tickets is getting easier and easier – Gone are the days when a very slow IRCTC website was the only channel for booking train tickets online. Now we have IRCTC partners like Cleartrip & others who have made booking tickets a breeze.

And according to the announcement made by IRCTC today – it is going to get even easier. In July last year, Indian Railways had announced launch of their Mobile ticket booking application, which I could not find at that time on any of the Indian Railways website. The announcement made today is probably the same mobile application that was announced over 6 months back.

Even this time around, only after searching for about 15 minutes on IRCTC website, was I able to find the details of the said mobile applications.

It seems that IRCTC has directly partnered with all these 3 mobile payment gateways and all three viz: paymate, ngpay and Atom provide their own application for searching, booking & paying for Train Tickets.

Paymate Railway Ticket Booking Application

The users will have to first download the Paymate application by visiting here. Follow the instructions and download the application to your mobile and you are on your way to booking train tickets on your mobile. This application will most probably not work on most feature phones, but supports all major smartphones for booking tickets. Paymate app also supports flight tickets, movie tickets and shopping along with Train ticket bookings.

ATOM Railway Ticket Booking Application

ATOM mobile app is very similar to Paymate, but it also supports feature phones along with smartphones. You will obviously need your GPRS to be enabled to buy tickets on Atom. You can get more information about the app on Atom website. Like Paymate Atom also supports various other bookings apart from train tickets as well!

Ngpay Railway Ticket Booking Application

Ngpay is also very similar application to both mentioned above. Users have to download & install the mobile app on their GPRS enabled phone. According to their website, ngpay works on just about any mobile phone, from basic models to high-end ones.

All 3 of them promise extreme ease of use as well as high end security for booking tickets on their platform.

All in all it is a great step forward by Indian Railways. Mobile train ticket bookings are sure to shoot up with the launch of these apps. If you are planning to book tickets next time, try booking them through these mobile apps and let us know what you think about them.

Google Bus Transit extends to Navi Mumbai, Kalyan & Thane!

Arun Prabhudesai — Tue, 22 Nov 2011 08:01:10 +0000

After covering over 8 Indian cities Google Transit has now spread its wings to Navi Mumbai, Kalyan and Thane. This is surely going to help people who stay or travel on the outskirts of Mumbai.

Although travelling within Mumbai and its suburbs is relatively easier, if one has to travel from, lets say, Kalyan to Thane it gets difficult due to various modes of transport agencies involved. Once has to literally change 3 different modes of transport to reach the destination . In such a situation, Google transit can really be of great help!

Google Transit has now tied up with NMMT (Navi Mumbai Municipal Transport), KDMT (Kalyan Dombivali Municipal Transport) and TMT (Thane Municipal Transport) which will enable them to give timings and directions to commuters traveling to & fro from Navi Mumbai, Kalyan and Thane. Mumbai Central Railway and Western Railway is already covered by Google Transit.

Lets take an example to see how easily commuters can get the direction even for complex directions!

Google Transit Directions from Kalyan to Thane

As you can see from the screenshot above, Google transit not only offers directions, but also bus numbers, their timings, various alternatives and also the total approximate time required for the travel.

With Google Transit being on mobile as well, commuters can find any travel directions anytime!

Here is a question to readers – How many of you have used Google Transit earlier and how effective and helpful was it to you? Let us know..

Indian Railways strengthens Tatkal Reservation system !

Viral Dholakia — Sat, 12 Nov 2011 08:51:49 +0000

The Tatkal emergency reservation scheme of Indian Railways was introduced to facilitate latecomers to avail of train berths just few days before the actual date of journey on being charged nominal extra costs.

Earlier, Indian Railways kept reserved one whole bogey for Tatkal passengers; but now the accommodation system has been modified to allow few Tatkal passengers in each compartment.

However, like most public amenities being subjected to malpractice in India, even Tatkal booking scheme was not spared from black marketing and ticket hoarding by travel agents. Thus, the true purpose of the Tatkal booking scheme was defeated as the common man could not avail of emergency tickets easily.

In order to deal with this menace, Indian Railways banned travel agents from Tatkal booking through e-ticketing route on all days between 8 am to 9 am, to help reduce traffic on the site during peak opening hours, in mid-2010.

However, showing further seriousness in ensuring common man’s ability to access Tatkal reservation scheme without any manipulation, Railways have decided to reduce the advance reservation period for Tatkal tickets from 2 days to 1 day to facilitate emergency travel.

Furthermore, the first hour restriction (8 am to 9 am) for agent bookings will now be extended to two hours (until 10 am) for on-counter as well as internet bookings, in order to deal with increasing number of complaints against web-based agents that still manage to corner substantial Tatkal tickets, thus profiteering from the system loopholes.

In order to toughen up the rules further, only four passengers will now be allowed to travel per PNR for Tatkal tickets in order to allay misuse of reservation facility. The prevailing system allows a maximum of six in case of normal bookings.

The new system, which is expected to be implemented in a week’s time, will NOT allow any refund on confirmed Tatkal tickets except when trains are cancelled or running late. Currently, a flat refund of 25% of total fare charged on the ticket, excluding Tatkal charges is granted on cancellation of Tatkal ticket.

Moreover, producing identity proof will now be made mandatory while booking Tatkal tickets under the new guidelines. So, these are some welcome changes, to say the least!