The Competition Commission of India has found the Indian Railways’ practice of rounding off upwards the amount charged for a ticket booked online to be an abuse of dominance and has asked the Director General to look into the issue and submit a report within 60 days.
The CCI acted on the information provided by two people who alleged that railway tickets booked online are rounded off to the higher multiple of 5. So, if the fare is ₹386, then the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) website rounded this off to ₹390. Further, they said this was done on individual tickets even if multiple tickets are booked.
For example, if four tickets of ₹386 are booked, then the extra amount charged is ₹4 per ticket, rather than rounding off the total ₹1,544 to ₹1,555.
“The Opposite Parties have not been able to convince the Commission as to why the policy of rounding off of actual base fares to the next higher multiple of ₹5 is applicable to the sale of online tickets, when it may be possible for the Opposite Parties to transfer even one paisa electronically,” the CCI said in its judgement.
“Further, during the preliminary conference, the Opposite Parties could not explain why rounding off is done separately for each passenger even when more than one tickets are booked through one account of the same time for a journey,” the CCI added.
In light of this, the CCI found that such a rounding up of fares amounts to an imposition of unfair conditions in the market for the sale of rail tickets in India, especially in online booking, which was in contravention of Section 4(2)(a)(i) of the Competition Act, which pertains to the abuse of a dominant position.
“Accordingly, the Director General (the DG) is directed to cause an investigation into the matter and submit his report within a period of 60 days from the receipt of this order,” the CCI said.
