IRCTC, the railroads’ ticketing and catering division, withdrew a contentious tender for the employment of a consultant to monetize its passenger and freight customer data due to privacy concerns, officials said on Friday. IRCTC told the Shashi Tharoor-led Congress leader-led Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology on Friday that it was abandoning the tender.
In-depth details of IRCTC withdraws tender for hiring Bid for the Appointment of Consultant to Monetize Passenger Data:
Following a PTI report on the tender for the employment of a consultant for digital data monetisation, the parliamentary panel had summoned representatives of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).
Rajni Hasija, the MD and chair of the IRCTC, testified before the panel alongside other representatives.
An IRCTC representative informed the panel that the tender had been withdrawn because the Data Protection Bill had not been approved.
Prior to the panel hearing on Friday, the decision to withdraw the tender bid for the appointment of consultant was made at the IRCTC annual general meeting.
The procurement document states that the data to be examined will include facts like “name, age, mobile number, gender, address, e-mail ID, class of voyage, payment option, login or password” and other information that is collected by the national transporter’s different public-facing applications.
More than 10 crore users of the IRCTC, of which 7.5 crore are active users.
The consultant would also have access to the digital data systems that produce behavioural data such as passenger flow, trip type, frequency, travel time, booking time, age group, and gender, payment method, number of destinations, and booking modes, according to the tender document titled “The Scope of Work for Project A: For Study of Monetization of Digital Data of Indian Railways (IR)”.
