IRCTC Shares Surge Beyond Rs 1,000 For The First Time

A day ahead of the inaugural run of its second private train, shares of IRCTC Ltd on Thursday rose by 2 percent to Rs 1,005, its new all-time high. Between its stock market debut and now, the stock has surged three times its IPO issue price.

Earlier this week, the Ministry of Railways gave its approval to the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to run Ahmedabad-Mumbai Central Tejas Express for six days a week. The inaugural run of the train will be on 17 January 2020 and will commercially start operations on 19 January, according to its statement to the exchanges.

IRCTC currently also operates Delhi-Lucknow Tejas Express.

The Mini Ratna public sector enterprise has the sole authorisation over ticketing and catering services for the Indian Railways. Its business can be divided into four verticals- catering, railway ticketing, tourism services and packaged drinking water.

Meanwhile, there are also media reports that suggest that IRCTC could be replaced as the official caterers to the Parliament canteen. Among contenders considered for the replacement were government-run ITDC and private packaged food brands Bikanerwala and Haldirams.