In a crackdown against the misuse of its online ticketing platform, the Indian Railways has decided to deactivate unverified IRCTC accounts. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Wednesday that the Railways will soon roll out online Aadhaar authentication—or e-Aadhaar authentication—for booking Tatkal tickets, enabling genuine users to get confirmed train tickets with convenience. The development comes amid the reported use of automation for booking Tatkal tickets, wherein miscreants are suspected to be deploying bots and using unauthorised tools for making Tatkal bookings.
Are Tatkal bookings only available for first few minutes? Railways analysis reveals shocking trends
An internal analysis by the Railways, covering the booking patterns between May 24 and June 2, highlighted that only a fraction of the tickets were booked within the first minute of the Tatkal booking window. Every day, around 2,25,000 passengers book Tatkal tickets through IRCTC, the Indian Railways’ online ticket booking platform.
For the AC class, only 5,615 tickets were booked in the opening minute, as against a daily average of 1,08,000 tickets. Also, nearly 86 per cent of the bookings were made within the first hour of the window, while about 3.0 per cent were booked 10 hours later, indicating that the system is functioning and passengers are getting tickets even hours after the window opens.
A similar trend was noticed in the non-AC category, where only 4.0 per cent bookings were made in the first minute, and 22,827 bookings in the second, as against an average 1.18 lakh daily bookings. More than 84 per cent tickets were booked within the first hour and 12 per cent of the tickets were still available for booking 8-10 hours later. The data challenged the general perception that Tatkal bookings close within seconds.
IRCTC News | Railways takes steps to counter suspicious booking activity
The Indian Railways has deployed artificial intelligence-enabled and specialised tools to identify and block suspicious activity.
Over the last six months, over 2.4 crore user accounts have been deactivated, and another 20 lakh flagged as suspicious and under investigation based on their Aadhaar and other documents.
Currently, the IRCTC portal has more than 13 crore active users. However, only 1.2 crore of these accounts are Aadhaar-verified.
The IRCTC platform plans to conduct out a special verification drive for non-authenticated users.
Any accounts found to be suspicious will be suspended.
Tatkal Booking Window | Aadhaar-verified user accounts to get preference in first 10 minutes
With an aim to ensure that genuine passengers get priority access to Tatkal bookings, the Railways board has decided that Aadhaar-authenticated users will be given preference in the first 10 minutes of Tatkal booking windows.
During this period, even authorised agents will not be allowed to book tickets.
What should IRCTC users do to ensure smooth operability?
IRCTC account holders must complete their Aadhaar verification at the earliest to avoid suspension or deactivation.
This way, the users can ensure uninterrupted access to premium booking services.
