Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to IRCTC Limited Q3 FY 2022 post-results conference call hosted by Haitong Securities. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Siddharth Agarwal, Executive Director, Sales at Haitong. Thank you and over to you, sir. Hello, everyone. I trust you and your dear ones are in good health. On behalf of Haitong Securities India, I welcome you to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, that is IRCTC's Q3 FY 2022 earnings con call. On behalf of Haitong India, I thank the management for giving us the opportunity to host the call. On the call, we have IRCTC's management led by Chairman and Managing Director, Shrimati Rajni Hasija Ji, and the Director Finance, Shri Ajit Kumar Ji. CMD, ma'am and Director of Finance, sir, shall first give the opening remarks, post which we shall open the floor for Q&A. I would now request CMD ma'am to provide her overview on Q3 FY 2022 results. Ma'am. Very good morning to all. I welcome you all to this conference call of IRCTC Limited ended 31st December. I hope that you and your dear ones are safe, and I wish you all a great and a healthy 2022 as we are interacting for the first time this year. I thought these wishes are very important. Now, when we talk about the results of the Q3 for the fiscal 2022, well, it has been a very good quarter for the travel and hospitality industry and, which was also contributed by the festive season. It would have been even better had the Omicron infections were not there. Thankfully, the nature has been relatively kind, and the Omicron infections have been much more moderate as compared to the previous waves, that is the first and the second wave, which were pretty bad. Hopefully, we are completely out of the current wave, and there are no new waves of infection. That is what we pray to Almighty. Yesterday, our company has announced the financial results for the quarter ending December 2021, and the same has been disclosed on the websites of both the stock exchanges, too. We shall first share a brief overview of the Q3 of FY 2022 results, post which we shall also have a question and answer session with all of you and you're free to ask. In the third quarter of FY 2022, IRCTC has not only demonstrated the resilience but has also reported the operational improvements in all of its business segments. While revenue for the quarter is still below the all-time high, but the absolute EBITDA hits a new high. On a consolidated basis, quarter three of this financial year, revenue came to nearly INR 540 crores, where we have seen a strong growth of 33% quarter-over-quarter, and significant improvement on year-over-year basis also, that is nearly more than 140%. EBITDA margin for the second consecutive quarter is at 51%. Net profit over INR 208 crores also saw a strong growth over the quarter-over-quarter performance, that is 32% and 168% over year-over-year basis. Both the results have been pretty good. Barring the emergence of another wave of infections, the travel and hospitality industry can look forward to a much better fiscal year 2023 and beyond. IRCTC's business segments like catering, packaged drinking water, and importantly, tourism, can look forward to a better performance in the changed industry environment. Things are improving. Vaccination is improving. We can expect good results. I shall now hand over the call to my colleague and our CFO, Mr. Ajit Kumar, to brief you on the financial and the segmental performance of the company. Good morning, everybody, and wishing you and your dear ones a much better 2022, especially as regards health. I shall first give a brief overview about Q3 FY 2022 results, post which we shall have the question and answer session. Q3 FY 2022 revenues saw another quarter of a strong improvement both on QoQ and YoY basis. Revenue of INR 540 crore grew by 33% quarter-on-quarter and by around 1.4x year-on-year basis. Given that Q3 FY 2021 had the impact of the pandemic. Given the internet ticketing continued to drive the growth, as you know it has the highest margin amongst the business segments. EBITDA margin remained at around more than 50% plus mark for the second consecutive quarter, and was at around 107% versus 52.2% quarter-on-quarter and 42.2% on a year-on-year basis. Let's now move to the different business segments of the company. The first one is internet ticketing segment. That has continued to be the more resilient business segment. Q3 FY 2022 third quarter revenue, internet ticketing hit another all-time high at around more than INR 312 crores. Growing by around 17.9% quarter-on-quarter and significantly higher than INR 143 crore in Q3 FY 2021. The growth was driven by both the growth in ticketing volume and in non-service charge revenue. EBIT margin remained about 50% and was at 34.8% versus 83.1% quarter-on-quarter and 76.3% year-on-year basis. The other segment is the catering segment, which has moved back to profit after EBITDA after six quarters of losses. For Q3 FY 2023, the segment reported EBIT of INR 5.7 crore versus minor loss of INR 0.15 crore quarter-on-quarter and loss of INR 7.94 crore year-on-year. The resumption of cooked food was only a part of the quarter and should help better performance in coming quarters because this is going to be a permanent feature now. Rail Neer has also maintained the momentum in revenue improvement and EBIT. The Q3 FY 2022 revenue for the segment grew by 21% quarter-on-quarter to INR 49.9 crore. EBIT margin got back to double-digit mark at 10.1% versus 6.8% quarter-on-quarter and a loss, of course, in Q3 FY 2021. The next segment, the tourism segment, which as all over the world has been the most hit by the pandemic, saw a sharp revenue growth of 15.2% quarter-on-quarter to INR 68.25 crore, which was the highest revenue in the last seven quarters. EBIT loss also now narrowed down to INR 7.93 crore versus INR 21.2 crore quarter-on-quarter and INR 11.4 crore year-on-year basis. The cash and bank balance and net worth of the Company at the end of the Q3 FY 2022, the cash and bank balance is INR 1,821 crore and the net worth is now INR 1,840 crore. That brings to the end of the opening remarks. Now we can straight move to the question answer session. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchtone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one. The first question is from the line of Jinesh Joshi from Prabhudas Lilladher. Please go ahead. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Madam, can you help us with the number of tickets which were booked for the quarter in share of non-convenience revenue to begin with? Well, the number of tickets which have been booked, it has been very good growth. In October, we booked around 4.38 crore tickets. In November it was again 4.18. I'm giving the absolute number, then I'll give you the average also. In the month of December, the number dropped a bit. It was 4.02 crore when I said it. In January also the figures have been around 3.41 because we were impacted by pandemic again in the month of January. The second question, can you please repeat the second one? The share of non-convenience revenue. Yes, the total revenue, when we talk about the non-convenience fee revenue, because the revenue is earned in one month but realized in another month, it is better if we take the consolidated nine months kind of a figure. In this nine months kind of a figure, the total revenue which we earned from the internet ticketing was INR 728 crore. Out of which INR 499 crore was of the convenience fee, that is 68%. The 32% was INR 229 crore of the non-convenience fee. If you want further detailing, I can give you that also. No, madam, that should be fine. My second question is on the tourism segment. Now, despite the swift recovery in the tourism revenues, the segment reported an EBIT loss of about INR 8 crore for the quarter. Can you highlight the reason behind it? Because if I look at FY 2020, especially Q1 and Q2, our revenue run rate was far lower in the region of about INR 45 crore-INR 50 crore. Despite that, we were into profits back then. Right now at INR 68 crore, we are into EBIT loss. If you can just throw some light on that. See, as far as the tourism sector is concerned, we have reduced the losses. You have noticed that the losses which were earlier have got reduced to INR 27 crores only. We are trying, although in October and November and December, all efforts which we started, we could start only in the month of October. Our efforts were fructifying in the month of November, December. But when we were doing this, the pandemic had already started entering in the month of December. Our December sales from the tourism also got impacted. January was pretty bad for the tourism. January figure impact you will see in the next quarter. In tourism, when you start selling a thing, you start selling in six months in advance. All our departures for that period were fully sold, but we had to cancel a few because the pandemic had already started entering, and the impact was seen even in the month of December also. The tourism still is passing through very, very bad phase. The bookings which you had earned earlier lost again in January. To regain that in the month of February or March, you need some time. It is a continuous process. Any breakage in between is going to impact your next three months. It is a consecutive or a cascading kind of effect tourism always has. Anything pertaining to law and order, anything happening adverse in the country, it impacts your businesses in the tourism sector. It is only IRCTC which has been able to come back at least. I think the things are pretty bad in the other with the other private companies where people had to lose plenty of jobs also. Sure, madam. I fully understand that. The reason I was asking is because earlier at INR 50 crores we were profitable and now at INR 68 crores we are into losses. Is there any change in the cost structure which you would want to highlight is what I was essentially speaking about. Frankly speaking, there is not much change in the structure. Say the bookings, the sales are not sales which were picked up, we lost the sales. There were many cancellations. The efforts by the teams are even more, but the results are not forthcoming because we are losing business because of the pandemic. People are hesitant of traveling. It is only in the deluxe segment or in the mass travel. The quantum of the mass travel that it used to be is no longer there. It is only the very, very necessary. Thanks to the festive season during the month of October, there we could gain something. Marriage season also in the month of December that we could retain some bookings. Otherwise, the things would have been even worse, had those seasons were not there. Tourism has started picking up. It will pick up further. You need some time. You need six months' time at least of the steady environment without any change so that you can get a good results in that. Sure, madam. One last question from my side. Is there any rollback of fees happening from tourists to general category, given restoration of normal fees as it was? There was a clipping, press clipping, which we shared in the last call, and we mentioned also that we have not heard of any such thing so far, that Ministry is thinking of rolling back the reservation fee on the second AC. Put together both segments, second AC and sleeper, is contributing to the 76% of the booking. Okay, madam. Thank you so much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Urmil Shah from Ageas Federal Life Insurance. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, ma'am, for the opportunity. Ma'am, my first question was on the catering segment. Now that the pre-cooked meals are being allowed, how has the transition to new tenders happened? Would it be too early to speak about the first rail price increase that was supposed to happen? See, the cooked food decision came in the, I think, last week of November. We started giving the trains on tender from the first December onwards. Out of which few trains which were tendered with documents, we could restore them little early as compared to the other where we had to do a tendering. If you recall my earlier discussions, the total number of trains where the tenders were to be awarded with the pantry cars, the number was 417. This number is out of these 417, 20 trains were not restored. Forty-four new trains we got. In a nutshell there is a gain of 24 trains. As of now, my total trains with the pantry car is 441. Out of which 428 trains are running with the pantry car with the cooked food, while 13 are still on the ready-to-eat food because tender for those trains could not be materialized because of either very low bid or no bid. We also have train -side vending trains. Their number is nearly more than 700 for which the tender process has already been started. Very soon you will see the results and increase in the revenue from this segment. You can say from the pantry car segment and from the Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto, all of which have now been tendered. License fee has started accruing. The same is our turnover from the sale of our Rajdhani and Shatabdi and Duronto food; it also has been restored. For TFC, yes, tender process has started. The license fee will start soon from February onwards, because those tenders take time. These are the small value tenders, and generally you need some more hard work in tendering those trains. Ma'am, on the price hike, when should we expect that it would be? In February, we are likely to close all the tenders for the train side vending. Ma'am, I was talking about the price hike which was supposed to get implemented and because of the pandemic it got delayed. I think it is there in the benefits note also. Right. There we have given the impact very clearly. I'll read out that, for the catering contracts awarded before 22nd of March have been treated as a zero period due to the pandemic. Accordingly, no income as well as the railway share payable has accrued during the year 2021 and the period up to 26th November. The Railway Board's order dated 23rd of February 2021 for the termination of a standard bid document due to the change in the scope of work has been withdrawn on 19th November, and appeal filed by Railway Board has been annulled. Honorable High Court of Madras has withdrawn the case. Particular case has been withdrawn by the Ministry of Railways and catering services started from 27th of November in the phased manner. The income and the railway share payable has been accrued accordingly. The effect of enforcement of the license fee is from 27th of November to 31st of December, has not been ascertained and recognized on account of an increase in the catering tariff as per the Commercial Circular No. 16 of 2019 issued from the Railway Board. It is sales assessment happens in two periods, Urmilji. One is the lean period and other is the peak period. Peak period is now coming in the Holi. One, that spur will be taken care of in that. In January that is considered as a lean period we could not do because of the pandemic. That sales assessment we are likely to complete in the month of March for the peak period. For the lean period, we'll see we can do now because February is again a little higher period, not lean, not considered as lean. After that assessment is over, we'll see the increase in the license fee impact. Sure, ma'am. Coming to the e-catering part, in the last con call, you had talked about that, you know, we are looking at onboarding, you know, partners for the food delivery point of view. Given that with the large aggregators, you know, it is taking time to cut a deal on the commercials. An update on that would be helpful and also the volume of e-catering. Well, we have been able to bring on board quite a few of them. I'll share that figure with you shortly before I conclude. As of now, I think I've missed that particular thing, so my team is collecting that. We have been able to bring many of them on board. Sure, ma'am. My last question was on the non-service charge revenue within internet ticketing. If you look at the nine months number which you shared at INR 29 crore, and if I just adjust for you know the INR 126 crore kind of number which was there in the first half, that means we have crossed the Q3 number of INR 100 crore. If you could share you know which are the subsegments that are driving that revenue, and should we expect that this INR 80 crore-INR 100 crore range on a quarterly basis to be sustainable? Internet ticketing has been contributing the maximum, not only the maximum, revenue as of now, but also contributing the maximum of the profit, you know. Because all other segments, the profit share is less, and the because the maximum contribution has been from the internet ticketing. Whether we'll be able to sustain the same pattern, January is impacted because of the Omicron. Yes, some impact will be seen in the month of January. February and March we have that Holi period, which is considered as a peak period. My indirect answer is already there, that we can expect certain increase in the booking. We normally have high bookings in the month of Holi because of the travel happening towards eastern region and the return travel also happening. When you said the other segments, how the internet ticketing for the segment would be doing, yes, we have done some hard work in the advertisement, et cetera. The results for the same normally fructify in the month of March, so you will see some impact in that also. As far as our own payment gateway is concerned, it is doing pretty well. We have, if you ask me the nine months period what all marketing revenue we have got, it is, if I say the percentage sharing with you, the total marketing revenue in the has been around INR 56 crores. Other than that has been INR 172 crores for non-convenience fee revenue, which is contributing around 32% of the total revenue of internet ticketing. Out of it, 75% share is of the other resources and 25% share is directly of the marketing revenue, that is the advertisement revenue. There we have done very well. Our payment gateway is also doing well, and some of the results will fructify. We are also working very hard and reworking all our policies so that more and more corporate and the government business can be achieved in the month of March. Things look good so far, Urmilji. Sure, ma'am. Thank you. Whenever it is possible to share the e-catering- Yeah, I'll certainly share the e-catering takeaway with you. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mayank Babla from Dalal & Broacha. Please go ahead. Thank you for taking my question. Congratulations on a great set of numbers. Ma'am, could you please give me the capacity of Rail Neer as of end of last quarter? Capacity utilization and the units sold, please. Well, capacity utilization was again impacted by the Omicron. Up to, I think, current production of the Rail Neer has been to the tune of 5.5 lakh L a day. Where the capacity is around 14.8 lakh L a day because of the. Though the demand has increased as compared to the previous month, but still it has not come up to the maximum level. One, because of the winter, where the consumption of the water goes low, and secondly, because of the travel. You know, the second wave travel is happening, and second wave travel is around 38%. With the restoration of cooked food, the extended catering, that is Rail Neer, has picked up. Production level is to the tune of 45%. The plant utilization has been to the tune of 45%. Recently, we have done a course audit also. In that also, we have found that our production capacity is being utilized in the percentage of 45%-63%. Average is nearly 46%. Okay. Sure, sure. Ma'am, thank you for that. My second question is regarding the tickets booked. Ma'am, could you give us the segmentation between this, AC, non-AC, and the general 2S classes, please? Okay. Yeah. Let's start from the highest. Yeah. sleeper class is the highest. That is, 38.1%. Sorry, 2S is the highest, that is 38.6%. sleeper class is 38.1%. Okay. Put together second AC, third AC, and AC chair car is 22%. First AC executive class is less than 1%. Okay. Sure, ma'am. Thank you so much, and best of luck for the future. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Manoharan from Retail Investor. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity, madam. Madam, just want to know, like, in the internet ticketing, madam, like, if there is a split that you can share between the train and the bus. Just to know, like, how it's progressing, the bus and the air that we ventured into, right? How it is progressing, madam, and any share you can do it? I think these things cannot be compared because bus is in ticketing we have a sole right. In bus you have open competition, and there the bus booking is picking up as compared to the previous. The air booking has also started picking up, but air booking was pretty bad in the month of January and December. Sorry, December it picked up. January it went down again. There you have many more competitors like OTAs are competing with you. In the bus also there are other partners. Both in railway share cannot be compared with the bus and the air share. However, our online share of the railway ticketing is we are maintaining at more than 80% levels. The system ticket which is being booked through counter is nearly 18%. Okay. Thank you, madam. The next one, madam, like, so there's an option for the private trains, right? That got canceled by the government, right? Now any update on that, madam? Anything that's coming up sooner? Discussions are still happening with the Ministry of Railways on this issue. In fact, today also there is one meeting with them, one of the directors. We are still, I think the Ministry is still working on that, so I will not be able to give you a major update on this, but things are still under being. Okay. The last one, madam, if I may. The payment wallet, madam, like, is it in terms of growth percentage or like, how are you progressing there, madam, in the growth wise? Not in the profit or not in the number wise, just to see how it is progressing, right? Any growth number, percentage number you can share, madam? At the wallet alone. Sir? Growth opportunities. Growth opportunity, I think every segment has, because in the catering segment. Mm-hmm. More and more trains are being tendered out. The Train Side Vending is going to be added. There also there is a scope of Not the catering, madam. Only on the payment wallet. You said payment wallet. Oh. Mm-hmm. Payment wallet, of course. Payment wallet, there is some growth is going to happen because gradually the wallet number, the wallet users number is increasing. Mm-hmm. 100%. The open wallet, yes, in iMudra there are certain challenges because now we have changed our partner from one bank to another bank we have got shifted? Increase INR 1 lakh. However, we have found a marginal increase in the business, but not very considerable. In the open wallet also. Okay, madam. Last one, madam. The Swiggy and other things, right? The last time when we spoke about the aggregators, we said actually we are trying our own aggregator, right, madam? Is that we made any progress there, madam? Anything that we- Yes. We have got some progress. Our MOA changes are being discussed at various levels in the Ministry of Railways. I think we are in a concluding stage now. Once it is approved by our parent ministry, the things will be sent to for further action and the MOA changes will be executed, then we'll also have to follow the course through our AGM. We are working on the agreement very thoroughly. We will have our own aggregator. Is it like our aggregator? We will have similar to Swiggy- We have our own PG. We have our own PG. We will have an aggregator license. Okay. Okay. We will be free to take our PG as an aggregator to other companies to work upon. That will be an additional source of revenue for us in the coming years to come. Maybe the next year, maybe that year. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Thanks a lot, madam. All the best, madam. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sridhar Mandke from FIS Global. Please go ahead. Hello. Ma'am, first of all, congratulations on excellent set of numbers there. Am I audible? Yes, you are. Okay. I have a few questions. First is on the tourism segment. I see that expense on the tourism segment from last quarter has almost doubled. Could you shed some light on that? The second question is about the profit margin in catering segment. The EBIT seems to be at 5% at the moment. Do you see it growing maybe in double digits in coming quarters? That's the second question. I'll carry on after that. If you could- I'll answer your second question first. The profit margin in the catering segment is 5%. Yes, it is going to increase further because more and more trains are going to be tendered. Your segment vis-a-vis the expenses are going to remain the same. The main expense is generally on the HR and expenditure that you do. We are getting good bids as far as the licensing of the trains is concerned. The margins are going to increase. If I recall correctly, in 2019-20, our margin in the catering segment has been around. I think 10%-12%. 12% was the total margin, which increased at times in the peak season. In the catering segment in the quarter, if I see the, as compared to the consecutive quarter, we have done much better. That is, around, INR 34 crore better than the previous quarter. In profit, in the last quarter, the catering was a losing segment. Now it has become a profitable segment. Profit margins are going to increase further. That is what we are anticipating. Yes. Yes. Thanks, madam. Why in the tourism our expenses have gone up? Because, in the tourism, many trains have run. Because of the, Revenue increase in trains. Revenue increase. The revenue has also increased in the tourism segment because of the running of the Tejas and some fixed expenses of the Tejas had to be paid. That was paid. I think that could be probably one of the very important reason that our tourism expenses were little more. Okay. Yes. Thanks, madam. Another set of questions is that, how is the booking shaping up on IRCTC Air as probably you have answered that earlier, but just wanted to have more highlight on that. The last question- We have to achieve the 1920 levels, sir. Okay. We have not been able to gain the same momentum as we had earlier. In fact, in December and for January, we had many offers received from the airline, but somehow we could not execute. We could not avail them because of the massive cancellation happening because of the Omicron. We are anticipating good bookings now once the air traffic is resumed to its full. We may also work on the booking charges also again. We are also reconsidering and rediscussing our sales incentive, PLBs, MLBs, technical bonus, etcetera, with the airlines also so that the booking in the segment can be restored. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. The last one from me is that, do you have any plans to open IRCTC executive lounges at more stations? How is the response on existing stations? We have executive lounges at, I think, eight executive lounges as of now we have in with IRCTC. Because of the Omicron, the sale of those executive lounges was also impacted. We also have a plan to open in the other segments for which very soon you will see some tenders. Okay. Yeah. Thank you, madam. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sheikh Mohammed, individual investor. Hello. Thank you for the opportunity, madam. Many, many congratulations for excellent results. My question is, madam, during the pandemic, there was also the reservation of second class, means sitting, was also being reserved. What is the position now? Is it still going by reservation or general ticketing has been started from the counter? Second class is still reserved, and IRCTC is booking around 38% of that area. It is still reserved. Entire booking is with the IRCTC and through the system also, of course, is there. 38% of such quantum is being booked through IRCTC portal. Ma'am, what performance you mean in next quarter, what kind of performance you are expecting from IRCTC? There will be improvement from the December quarter or there will be slightly less? It is, very subjective. If Omicron has already hit us in the month of January. Mm-hmm. Being the hospitality segment, all our segments were impacted. In fact, we had a very, very good sales in the tourism segment. All our trains were full, et cetera. We had to cancel a lot of departures till February. Most of the departures were canceled. Now we are trying to gradually resume the business. In tourism business there's going to be some hit because one and a half months is already lost. For gaining the rest of one and a half months, you need another one month. As I said in my earlier remarks, tourism has a cascading challenge. If you want to sell your product, you have to look one year in advance. Any month lost in between, you add to that. Booking of that particular month is not only gone, the booking for the next three months is also gone. You have to plan in advance. You have to do so many things. In Rail Neer, yes, if it is an extended catering, as the train number has increased, we can apprehend certain growth in the catering and the Rail Neer and the internet ticketing. We can foresee some. Even the internet ticketing in the month of January was impacted because of the Omicron. Okay, ma'am, that will help. Another question is, ma'am, when Vande Bharat trains are coming on board or when it will start, do you have any idea? When it is offered to us for providing hospitality service, we'll certainly come forward. I can only say this. Baki rest is to be answered by Ministry of Railways. Okay, ma'am. Thank you very much. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Rahul Jain from Dolat Capital. Please go ahead. Yeah, hi. Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on very strong numbers. Firstly, my question is on the catering business. How the pricing, you know- Which segment you mentioned? Ma'am, I said about catering segment. What's my- You need to be a bit louder. Just a second, ma'am. Is it any better now? It's a little better. Okay. What I'm asking is about catering business. What are the prospects here? I mean, how the pricing has changed. I mean, what kind of premium we have seen in general on the re-tendering basis? Because earlier, the tenders were going on discount. What is the difference between what typically we used to get for the particular packs versus what we are getting now? I mean, and you also said that there is two period assessment, which is lean and peak. And we have done it for the lean season right now. But I think the assessment in current period would not be much ideal given that January has seen significant drop in the passenger traffic. Will that also have some bearing in terms of the minimum license fee that we will put in the contract during the assessment will be lower? The catering has two portions to be handled. One is that, yes, the first challenge with IRCTC was to restore the services and put the train on track, as far as the catering was concerned. That particular job is over and we have got very good bids. There we have seen some improvement. That is, the improvement that we were already foreseen. The rest of the FBT contracts were also restored, so the licensing structure remains the same. The increase in the tariff had been there, which has been made effective as far as the passenger is concerned. The corresponding increase in the license fee is anticipated. That is based on the assessment that you have mentioned. Yes, we had identified January as a lean period for doing the assessment. We could not do it because of Omicron. We are going to encash. Hopefully everything goes fine and there is no fourth wave and no threat of the pandemic further. Then we will do. Certainly we'll carry out the assessment in the coming months for that in fact increased period. For making that effective in the catering segment, you need to have a lean period as well. We'll see what lean period we need to choose and then we pick up the figure and do the assessment as per the availability. Once it is completed, certainly the impact on the increase in the license fee will be very visible. That perhaps to the best of my knowledge and the consolidation practices that are being followed in the IRCTC, we'll be able to see that impact, I think in the end of March only. We'll start working on that. In the years to come, you will see some good improvement as far as the catering is concerned, rather. I would say good improvement in the catering. Rail Neer is going to be a part of that. As far as our turnover from the Rajdhani Shatabdi food is concerned, since the price is increased, you can find marginal increase because of that in the turnover also. Right. Two more clarifications on points that you have raised earlier. One of the points was that if you read out that note from the result, which clearly says that, see, there is some advantage of this increased license fee, which will come for the period of 27 November to 31st of December, it not been accounted. Is it safe to assume that the revised price for this period will come in this quarter, January-March quarter? That is point one increased license fee 27 November increase. Our license fee will increase from 27 November only. Current number may go already. [inaudible] As per technicality, as per the contractual commitment, we cannot do without assessment. Right. More than vendor, we are in a hurry to do that. All our team effort got wasted because of the Omicron. Mm-hmm. We had made all the teams, etc. Everything was ready. The revenue will come later on. Revenue will come later on. It can come in the Q4 or it may take more time? No, it will come in the next financial year only for us. Mm-hmm. Q4 we may not get. Q4 we'll get the benefit of the increase in the turnover because of the RSC sales and the TSV contract which we could not do earlier. Some increase in the earnings will be there because those tenders are getting materialized now. New tender. These are new tender. The new 24 trains have also increased. That impact is also there. The festival season ahead, you will get even the sales are going to be better. Right. The number of TSV contract, I think, I heard the number to be 700. Was that number right? Yeah, it is nearly 700. This number in the previous quarter was INR 288. We had not done that analysis completely. Now we have completed the analysis. This is a section-wise analysis. If overall contract may be little less, but the tenders will be like this. Okay. You mean to say higher number is for section-wise, while total contract would be. Total number of trains is also going to be more. Right. This has gone from INR 288-INR 700 on like-to-like basis. Yes, yes. Okay. There is one mention in the note number seven that regarding non-provision of charges till December 31 for use of IRPRS for online ticketing by the company for running two private trains. Can you throw some light what is this pertaining to? See, as of now, we for booking Tejas trains, we are using the PRS of Indian Railways. That booking engine is being... our own engine is not yet ready. We are in process of making, and we are in talk with the various agencies. Since because of the pandemic, the Tejas operation itself was impacted, so we thought, okay, let's put our effort on making the booking engine on hold. We did not make our own engine because it involves expenditure. We were using their PRS, though in future Railways may claim PRS charges on that for the two trains, which is not going to be very huge. Mm-hmm. That charges we may have to pay, so we are making certain provisioning for that. That is the mention. As of now, we have not made any provision. Maybe in the end of the year we will make some provisioning for that. We keep some provisioning for that. The benchmark for this number would be, what is the total- As of now, let us do the bidding first. Only then we can do the benchmarking, because railway may ask us X amount, but as per the market demand, the amount may be X minus one. Yes. We will negotiate. Mm-hmm. for the X one rather than paying X. Ultimately the tickets will be, you mean to say instead of hosting it on IRCTC website, we could also use other channel, if those are cost effective? See, the booking inventory is with IRCTC. The booking engine has to be over the IRCTC. IRCTC can make its own engine or can take the PRS engine. Yes. We may continue with the PRS engine if the rates are negotiated well. If the rates are exorbitantly high, then we'll continue with making our own engine and go for our own some kind of a setup in our own system. Okay. Just to understand this, for example, if government is investing INR X to CRIS for this PRS, so total number of trains, which is two, divided by total number of trains. IRCTC has no business in that. Entire marketing revenue is with the IRCTC. For maintaining the infrastructure, we are already paying to CRIS. Mm-hmm. For using the PRS charges, we would be paying to CRIS. Marketing, even their marketing workload is also being done by IRCTC, for which we charge 50% of the revenue share. Right. Okay. Second, lastly, from the luxury tourism prospect, I can see on the website that we have started this for this October booking, October season. Have you started getting some response or do you have just closing right now? We have got certain queries from the UK market. U.S. market, we have not yet started. In fact, we are making efforts to run few charters. You might have seen some revenue also in this segment in the last year, in the current quarter also. We had run two departures on Maharajas' Express. Our third departure was due, scheduled on 20th January, got canceled because of the Omicron. Mm. The deluxe tourist train, the Buddhist train, we had to cancel because all our booking got canceled and the booking were coming from either from or from the other countries. Few big bookings were there from the U.S. also. For the month of October, yes, we have started booking because these bookings in the luxury segment start two years in advance. As of now, we have published only one year calendar for 2023. We are in process of publishing the calendar for 2023-2024 also, for which the effort, I think, it is going to be done very soon. Technically, if there's no new pressure from COVID, we may see this season playing out for Maharajas- Yes. Yes. -starting. Not only that, if the other countries are opening up, we will also very soon start our outbound business also, which is now put on hold. We have got, within a day or two, we are going to take a call. The countries which are open like Dubai and et cetera, where we are going to start our outbound and we are going to entice the upcoming holiday season, that is May, June. Right. Just lastly from my side, which is on the cash utilization. I think you said the cash number is INR 1,800 crore right now. Any plan, any allocation strategy that you'd like to discuss? See, out of this reserve, we have to have, since our bookings on the ticketing has gone up, INR 700 crores are on a revolving. Mm. It will keep revolving. If two holidays come, then it may reach up to INR 800 crore also. Because every day you get a booking of nearly 100, more than 100 kind of. In advance. In advance, and you have to deposit with the Indian Railways. If two holidays come, then you have to deposit more. One is the revolving. For revolving, the thing you want to know, and secondly we are also in process of changing the infrastructure for the internet ticketing. Again, when we started giving the tender, we were hit by the various supplies. Now again, we are reviving that, so we are thinking of doing some capital expenditure on internet ticketing, where we really want to improve the infrastructure. Our talks with the agencies and the tender process we have already initiated. You will see some expenditure on the internet ticketing and some expenditure on, in the upcoming, railway plans and infrastructure projects that are coming up, budget hotels, et cetera. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for the clarification. That's it from my side. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nilesh Jethani from BOI AXA Mutual Fund. Please go ahead. Hi, ma'am. Good afternoon, and thanks for the opportunity. Ma'am, my first question was the 2S ticket booking side. Wanted to understand today it is coming under the reserved category and what is the potential opportunity of tickets over here, and today, what would be the tickets being booked? The reason I'm asking this question is, say for example, you want to travel from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, there would be a passenger who would book, say, from Mumbai to Valsad, another booking from Valsad to, say, Ahmedabad. The same seat can be used twice, thrice or manyfold. Wanted to understand what is the potential over there, and today where are we as far as booking is concerned? See, as far as the potential of the sectional booking is there, this is going to be for the this segment will always be there. Okay. Right? Your assessment is right. In 2S it happens because the bookings are done from the section-wise. Even in Sleeper also, the bookings are done section-wise. The train runs, the bookings happening from end to end are there, but the inter-pool booking you cannot stop. It happens, and there are pools defined for that. I have worked earlier in that segment, so I can share that segment with you, that the inter-section booking also happens. That is why the utilization in few trains is always more than 100% because of the inter-sectional bookings. This is there in the Sleeper class also, and this is going to be in the 2S also. Just wanted to understand today what is the booking done and what could be the potential. Is it- Booking is nearly 38% of the total booking being offered on our portal. Last six to seven months from the day it has started, we are seeing that this booking is nearly up to 40%. In two to three months in the peak season, it has crossed 42% also. One can. It all depends how many classes are run by Indian Railways in the 2S. As of now, we have not got any decision from the Ministry of Railways that they will not run a second class in the reserved segment. In fact, in one of the press clippings, clarification was also issued by Ministry of Railways, where they had mentioned that 2S is going to continue to be in the reserved segment because they also get additional revenue on that. That's it. That is the only, I think, supplement. From, say, now the share of this tickets have gone up, I mean, absolute term growth also has been- I could not hear you. Could you come again? I wanted to understand for next, say, 12-18 months, what kind of growth we can expect as far as tourist tickets are concerned. If the overall passengers on Indian Railways is going to increase, all classes will gain out of that. You might have heard, read in the newspaper also that ministry is targeting good number of passengers this year. IRCTC may also be beneficiary of that. Second question on the catering side, Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. Jethani. The audio is breaking from your line, sir. Just a second. Am I audible now? Yes. Better. Little better, sir. Okay, madam. Madam, next question was on the catering side. Today I want to understand in the total runs, total trains being running on the Indian Railways, how many have restarted the catering, how many is left? Earlier margins used to be in the range of mid-teens. What is your sense on margins going back, say, in the next 12 months -18 months? See, of the total number of our trains which were running were to the tune in October, there were 3,000 such trains where IRCTC was providing the booking. They went up nearly 6,000, 5,997 trains where we provided booking in the month of November. In December, again, they went down to the tune of 4,500. In January, again, the figure went down and the trains were around 4,051, where we provided the reservation. That is answer to your first question. One more thing about catering, ma'am. You were asking about catering. In the catering, by January end we could provide catering services in the 428 trains with the pantry car. We could outsource all those licenses and we could award all the contracts. In addition to this, we are also running around, you can say, 112 contracts which are still running on RTE, and we are trying to give them again on the cooked food. Somehow the bidding process has not been very successful in this. Because of some or other reasons, we are doing such re-tendering again. Against this 400-420 trains where you are providing catering today, what was the number pre-pandemic? It was 470. We got 44 new trains, but at the same time, 20 previous trains were canceled. Net gain is 24. You have now your number is 441. Out of which 420 trains have been tendered with the cooked food. 13 are running with the RTE. No train is running without any contract, by the way. Either you have cooked food, majority 99% is with the cooked food where you get better license fee and rest is with that. Got it, madam. Got it. Yes, those were my questions and thank you so much for your time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will take that as the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Siddharth Agarwal for closing comments. Thank you, and over to you, sir. Mr. Siddharth Agarwal, please go ahead. Yeah, just a second. I would like to thank CMD, ma'am, Srimati Rajni Hasija-ji, and Director Finance and CFO, Shri Ajit Kumar-ji, for another insightful session on IRCTC and its growth prospects, and also to my colleagues and all the participants of today's call. Trust me, ma'am, it was indeed a huge learning experience for us too. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Before I close, the e-catering figures I would like to share. We have, I think, five partners in the B2C segment. It's Zomato, Paytm and this RailRestro. We have made them active. Since the cooked food has started, the e-catering average has gone down. It will pick up when the catering business is there. Commission is INR 505 crore. The commission that we have received is nearly INR 5 crore. That is all from our side. Thank you very much. Yes. Thank you, ma'am. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of Haitong Securities, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.