Table of Contents
1. Introduction
https www pcdatravel gov in Defence Accounts Department has been one of the pioneers in adopting and leveraging new and emerging technologies in all areas including Accounting, Internal Audit, and Payment and Financial Advice functions. The purpose is to provide value-added services to the Services in an efficient and effective manner. In furtherance of this objective the Defence Account Department came up with the idea of replacing the existing system of manual railway ticketing on warrants/Form D/ concession vouchers with an electronic web-based system not only to address issues related to accounting, audit & monitoring in manual system but also to meet the current requirement of Services in a digitally enabled environment.
2. The Background
The manual system of rail ticketing based on railway warrants involves a very complicated system of payments, accounting and virtually no budgetary control. Warrants are issue for moves on temporary duty, permanent transfers, annual leave and LTC. In addition to these, form D and CVs are also available. Foils of Railway warrants of various types are present by defence functionaries at PRS (Passenger Reservation System) counters and against these warrants, tickets for rail journey are issued by Indian Railway.
After zone-wise consolidation of these used Railway warrants, references are made by Zonal Railways to RBI Nagpur who credits their accounts based on claims made by them. Subsequently, bills are sent to PCA (Fys) for debiting the Defence Budget. The sheer volume of vouchers/warrants handled by Railways and Defence Account Department is huge i.e. about 70 lakh vouchers per year amounting to more than Rs. 1,000 crores approximately.
The total value spent by defence services can potentially exceed the budgetary allocations of the year as the budget holder, budget spending authorities and payment and accounting agencies are not able to compile the inputs in time.
3. New Defence Travel System – https www pcdatravel gov in
To mitigate various constraints like time consuming manual process, waste of precious man-hours in visiting the PRS counters, difficulty in tracking of manual warrant, lengthy accounting process, budgeting and monitoring issues and with the aim of providing cashless travel booking facility to the units/formations for their employees’ to meet all their travel needs, a new project ‘Defence Travel System’ was conceptualized by Defence Accounts Department in as early as 2009 by making use of latest digital technologies. The Defence Travel System https www pcdatravel gov in was a major and right step in the direction of e-governance and digitization towards which a renewed thrust and focus is being laid by the Govt. of India. The services of DTS are available under DTS Travel portal on 24X7X365 days anywhere in India where this facility has been enabled.
4.Development Phases
Keeping in view the resources available, wide changing technology and initial constraints from all stakeholders it was thought to implement the project in phases in the following manner https www pcdatravel gov in:
- Phase I : Implementation of e-Ticketing platform for three Defence Services for rail travel in lieu of railway warrant.
- [Phase II : Extending the system to cover Air Travel.]
- Phase III : Extending the system to Defence Civilians
- [Phase IV: Online submission of TA/DA Claims]
The first phase of the project covering Rail Travel was launch in December 2009 in collaboration with IRCTC. Phase-II covering Air Travel has been launched in May 2015 in collaboration with M/s Balmer & Lawrie Co. Around 3200 units have been issue login IDs for using the system so far and approx 5.10 lakh user profile has been creat so far and count on this account is increasing day by day. Further, training is being organize by CGDA at 27 stations across India for all Services in coordination with DG (OL & Strategic Move) in parallel to training at Delhi centre.
Extension of the system to defence civilians (Phase-III) is under implementation. As part of the fourth phase of online submission of TA/DA claims, a module for on-line requisitioning of DA advance is being develop which will subsequently be integrate with the Pay Accounts Office for proper accounting and monitoring.
5. Benefits
Availability of travel planning and on-line reservation system to Defence personnel in remote and far flung areas of their posting is a widely acceptable benefit that has accrued from the project. It has also saved the time required to visit to PRS counters. Further, audit of the travel entitlement and authorization is automatically carried out before allowing the booking itself and real time accounting is possible as rules and regulations are inbuilt in the system. Proper budgetary control can be exercised and different MIS can be generated for informed decision making. Cash handing is nil as all debits and credits are done through pay bills/ledger accounts and hence, possibility of fraud/wrong claim is also completely eliminated.
6. Process Flow Diagram
- Process Flow for Booking for Air Tickets for entitled DAD Officers.
- Work Flow-Accounting, Payment and Settlement in DTS for the PAO.
7. Security Features
Entry to the portal www.pcdatravel.gov.in is through e-Token only by the authorized user. The domain remain not made available to the public and https secure protocol is follow for transmission. Three layers security features are available for role based access into DTS Portal:
- Digital Certificate -Without digital certificate (e-Token), DTS Portal cannot be access.
- Login Credentials-Credential needs to be provided before entered into DTS portal.
- Security Question- At third layer security question/answer that is randomly generate is ask from the user. If user is not having actual answer, he cannot login to the site.
Once all the above state conditions are pass, then only the user will be able to log into the DTS portal. Further, User Audit log (with IP address, time and date stamp) is maintain. Exchange with IRCTC is through SSL. Presently also, security audit for additional features is in progress.
8. Future of the System
The system has enormous potential as it not only caters for meeting the travel need of Defence Personnel’s and Defence Civilians but also has inbuilt features of accounting, audit, authorization and entitlement checks which facilitate generation of different types of MIS and thus enables rule based decision making at all levels.
Once the system for on-line submission of DA advance and subsequently TA/DA adjustment claim is develop and implemente (work for which is in progress), the cumbersome system of manual TA/DA Claim will be eliminate and it will complete the cycle of cashless, error free and transparent system of travelling for all the users. This will also ensure better monitoring of available budget by the management who can plan the travel needs in a more effective manner.
Services Offered
All services listed below are fully available through this website. These are offer through our ‘Web Services’ by selecte mobile operators for use in booking tickets via mobile phones. However, different mobile service providers may have different restrictions/limitations on the packages offered to their mobile subscribers. IRCTC is not responsible for any limit service provision from any mobile service provider or such service providers.
Services Not Offered
- Reservation on Police/Military warrants, Railway passes, PTOs, Card passes & IC cards issued to MP’s and INDRAIL passes and all types of Rail Travel Coupons or on any Concessions. (Except senior citizen’s concession).
- Tickets to cluster stations (Stations not on the route of the train).
- Reservation on prebought tickets, i.e. tickets already bought at stations.
- Reservation on tickets with Break Journey.
- Issue of duplicate tickets for lost, mutilated or torn tickets.
- Source cluster tickets (Tickets from a station not lying on the route of train).
- Bulk Booking for families and groups.
- Personal Collection of tickets by customers from any designated centers.
Terms and Conditions of Service – https www pcdatravel gov in
Meanings
In this Agreement, the next terms will have the following meanings:
Ticket – means a ticket issued by the IRCTC. It is an authorization to travel using our ticket booking feature for a specific trip on the Indian Railways network. It means electronic ticket.
PRS – Passenger Reservation System.
Weekdays – Every day of the week except Sunday.
E-Ticket – refers to a rail reservation made on this website, for which the customer prints an electronic reservation ticket, which constitutes an authorization to travel, in place of a normal ticket, together with the respective authorized personal identification. Standard stationery.
Tatkal Ticket – A ticket booked against the Tatkal quota against payment of an additional premium fare in accordance with existing Railway Rules.
Card Time – The time during which the cards for a given train are prepare to be past on the display cases/boards before the train departs.
ERS (Electronic Booking Receipt) – A specified standard performance printer containing booking details and usage instructions. Can be use by passengers with relevant authorize identification as a travel authority to undertake travel. An ERS user is governe by the rules and instructions containe in the ERS.
Virtual Reservation Message (VRM) – The e-ticket screenshot display by laptops/mobile devices is call Virtual Reservation Message (VRM).
Generally
Moreover, IRCTC only provides online transaction facility with Indian Railways PRS system. Indian Railways Booking and Booking Rules are applicable to all transactions with special conditions imposed for internet bookings. Special conditions and footings of service applicable to online bookings are describ in this document.
The following terms and conditions smear if you wish to use. The Indian Railways online ticket booking service offered by the IRCTC website. Please read the terms and conditions carefully and. If you accept them, you will be able to register and transact on the site. No user can register more than once on the site. Please note that once you list on the IRCTC website. You are deem to have agreed to the terms and conditions mentioned below. If you do not agree to all of these terms and conditions, you should not transfer on this site. By clicking the ‘I Agree’ button, you have entered into a formal agreement with the IRCTC for the purposes of transactions on this site.
If a user disrupts the terms and conditions of use by registering more than. But, One User ID or booking tickets under multiple User IDs. After that, IRCTC reserves the right to disable all such user registrations. Refer the case to the RPF for process under the relevant section. Cancel any or all tickets reserved by law and using these records without notice. Junk/garbage values in the profile will lead to the user ID being disable.
