New Tatkal ticket booking rules (updated)



By DeshGujarat News, Ahmedabad, 29 June 2012

Under direction of Divisional Railway Manager, Ahmedabad Shri Rakesh Behal, a new system for issuance of Tatkal ticket has been implemented to prevent misuse of existing system. Following are the guidelines issued under the new system:

(1) Do purchase your Tatkal ticket yourself only if possible. It is advisable.

(2) If on your behalf, someone else is going to purchase your Tatkal ticket then following rules are strictly to be followed.

A. A person visiting ticket window for your Tatkal ticket must have your authority later.

B. Not only your signature, but signature of a person who visits the window to purchase your Tatkal ticket is compulsory from now on reservation form.

C. Your self attested identity card will have to be submitted at ticket counter.

D. A person who visits the window to purchase your Tatkal ticket will need to submit photo copy of his/her identity proof too.

(3) If any of above term is violated, Tatkal ticket will not be issued.

(4) These new rules are announced to prevent misuse of the system by agents.

(5) On same day if any person books not his own but another person’s Tatkal ticket, it will be taken as commercial activity and Tatkal ticket will not be issued.

More changes from 10 July

Concerned over large-scale complaints in the sale of Tatkal (emergency travel) tickets, the railways Friday announced changes in the procedure and timing of their sale.

It was decided that from July 10, the booking of tickets will start at 10 a.m. instead of 8 a.m. at present.

From July 10, reservation of tatkal tickets will start from 10 am instead of 8 am and no authorised agents will be allowed to book them during the first two hours. File Pic

The railways also decided that no authorised agents, including those of the Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation, will be allowed to book Tatkal tickets in the first two hours — from 10 a.m. to 12 noon, said a statement from the Railway Board.

The existing restriction on agents booking general tickets on the opening day from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. will also continue, it said.

Officials said while there was a huge passenger demand on the Tatkal system during the first few minutes after the booking counters open at 8 a.m., the role of touts has been bothering the ministry despite many steps to curb the menace.

Official statement issued by Railway ministry on new Tatkal rules

With a view to further improve the delivery of Tatkal tickets to passengers, the Ministry of Railways has decided that with effect from 10.07.2012 booking of Tatkal ticket will start at 1000 hours on the previous day of journey from train originating station instead of 0800 hours at present.

No authorised agents, including agents of IRCTC and RTSAs/RTAs will be allowed to book Tatkal tickets from 1000 hours to 1200 hours. The existing restriction of not allowing these agents booking of general tickets on the opening day from 0800 hours to 1000 hours will also continue.

Railway minister’s statement on new Tatkal booking norms

The Minister of State for Railways, Shri K. H. Muniyappa said that with the recent steep hike in the fares of the airlines, the demand and supply gap for Railway tickets have substantially increased which Railways is trying its best to reduce through various measures. Shri Muniyappa said this during his meeting of senior officers of Railways Board here today to review the progress of the steps taken to combat some cases of black marketing and purchase of railway tickets by touts. Member Traffic, Railway Board, Managing Director, IRCTC, Additional Member (Commercial) and other senior officers of Railway Board were present at the meeting.

Shri Muniyappa said that that the Indian Railways have been regularly monitoring the activities of the agents, touts and other individuals carrying out such activities and strict action has been initiated. The Minister said that every day on an average of around 15 lakh Railway tickets are being sold through 8838 passenger reservation ticket counters and the e-ticketing website through IRCTC, out of which the Tatkal tickets constitutes around 1.70 lakh.

Shri Muniyappa said that the Railways had introduced the Tatkal scheme to facilitate the bonafide passengers to travel by train at short notice. However, there are some reports of this facility being misused by some persons for pecuniary and personal gains, thereby defeating the very purpose of the scheme.

The Minister further said that some of the major problems being faced by the Railways are large scale sale of tickets within a short period in the counters, deployment of proxies to procure tickets at counters etc. To prevent misuse of the facility, Railways have taken steps like debarring the agents to book tickets during the first two hours, installation of CCTVs in all major booking centres to monitor the movement of touts, non issuance of duplicate in lieu of the lost Tatkal tickets and non-refund on cancellation of unused Tatkal tickets. The requirement of indicating Mobile number of the passenger in the application form is also being insisted to cross verify the genuineness of the passenger. Besides these measures, attaching the photo copy of identity proof of passenger has been made mandatory for booking of Tatkal tickets and carrying of ID card have also been made compulsory for all passengers of AC classes.

In addition, it has further been decided to change the time of booking of Tatkal tickets at the counters from existing 8.00 A.M. to 10.00 A.M. with effect from 10th July, 2012 to avoid congestion in the morning hours at counters for the normal advance booking passengers. The restriction on the agents for Tatkal tickets booking during the first two hours shall also continue. The Minister said that these steps have started yielding results.

The Minister also said that surprise inspections and preventive checks are being conducted regularly at reservation centres to contain the activities of the unauthorized agents and touts. These checks are intensified during peak/rush period and festival seasons. The department has carried out around 82,000; 61,000; and 65,000 surprise checks during 2009-10 to 2011-12, said the Minister. Against these surprise checks, around 4200 touts were apprehended and an amount of around Rs. 63,68,000/- were realized as fine and around 2000 persons were convicted. The connivance of around 170 Railway officers were also found during the above surprise checks against whom departmental actions were initiated which resulted in imposing of various penalties upon 102 officials including major penalties like removal, reversion from service etc.

The Minister said that IRCTC, a public sector undertaking of the Ministry of Railways which handles ticketing website, has also taken several steps to prevent touts and unauthorized agents from their illegal activities. Several technological innovations like increase in the bandwidth of internet, augmenting E-Ticketing software licences, technical evaluation of mobile based technology etc. are regularly being undertaken to cope up the demand and minimize the misuse of the system by unscrupulous people, added the Minister.

The Minister informed that the Ministry of Railways has also initiated steps to augment e-ticket handling capacity of its website through short term and long term measures. Due to these steps, the present capacity will increase from existing about 3.5 lakh bookings to around 5 lakh bookings per day in about four months period in the short term which will further be increased to about 8 lakh bookings per day in the long term plan. He informed that both IRCTC and CRIS are working jointly in this direction.

Shri Muniyappa said that wide publicity is being given at regular basis both through the print and electronic media appealing the general public to purchase ticket only from authorized sources so as to prevent prosecution and penalty. He appealed to the general public to co-operate with the Railways to make the system work successfully.

Railway’s statement on 10th July

The Ministry of Railways has further streamlined the delivery of tickets under Tatkal Scheme and the new amendment in the scheme will come into effect from tomorrow i.e. 10th July 2012 (Tuesday). Under the new amendment the booking of Tatkal tickets will start at 10.00 hours on the previous day of journey from train originating station instead of 0800 hours at present. For example, if a train is to depart from the originating station on the 2nd of the month, the Tatkal quota booking both through Internet (IRCTC Website) and reservation counters for that particular train shall open at 1000 hours on the 1st of the month. In addition, it has also been decided that no authorised agents, including agents of IRCTC and RTSAs/RTAs will be allowed to book Tatkal tickets from 1000 hours to 1200 hours from counters as well as from Internet.

At the Zonal Railway and the Divisional Railway level, the local Railway administration is also making arrangements at the reservation counters for orderly implementation of the amendment in the scheme like segregation of Tatkal buyers through separate queues, separate counters etc. as per the local requirement and feasibility. The travelling public is being informed about the new arrangements through Press Releases, Press Advertisements, Announcements and Notice Boards. Moreover, installation of CCTVs in all major booking centres to monitor any unusual activities, inspection of the reservation centres by the senior officers, display of helpline numbers for complaints, raids by the vigilance squads are some of the measures being taken to prevent misuse of Tatkal facility. The requirement of indicating Mobile number of the passenger in the application form is also being insisted to cross verify the genuineness of the passenger.

These new measures are in addition to the previously taken measures to revamp Tatkal system from November 2011. In November 2011, the following measures were introduced to reduce/minimize the possibility of booking of tickets by touts/miscreants and which are still continuing:

1. Advance Reservation Period of Tatkal scheme was reduced from two days excluding the day of journey to one day excluding the day of journey.

2. Refunds are not granted on cancellation of confirmed Tatkal tickets except in case of special circumstances like late running of train by more than three hours, cancellation of trains etc.

3. Duplicate Tatkal tickets are not issued under normal circumstances. In exceptional cases Duplicate Tatkal tickets can be issued on payment of full fare including Tatkal charges.

4. Tatkal tickets are issued only on production of self attested photocopy of one of the 9 prescribed proofs of Identity mentioned in the scheme, at the computerised Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counter. While booking e-ticket, the passenger has to indicate the number of identity card in the system. The passenger is required to carry the same proof of Identity during the journey.

5. A restriction of booking of a maximum of four passengers per PNR on Tatkal ticket has been imposed.

The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a Public Sector Undertaking of Ministry of Railways which manages Railways e-ticketing website namely www.irctc.co.in has also implemented following additional steps to streamline Tatkal ticket bookings:

1. High capacity Database servers have been installed.

2. Internet Bandwidth has been increased from 344 mbps to 450 mbps

3. Single user registration on one e-mail ID with email verification has been implemented.

4. Mobile validation of users and single user registration on one mobile number has been implemented.

5. Web service agents have been permitted to book only one Tatkal ticket per train per day on internet after 12.00 A.M.

6. Individual users are permitted to book only two tickets between 10.00 A.M. to 12.00 A.M.

7. Only two tickets can be booked per IP address between 10-12 AM. IP address check has helped in preventing multiple bookings from same office complex/internet café etc. This also helps in facilitating bookings by genuine users and prevents bookings for commercial gains.

8. Single session per user ID check has been implemented. With this step, a user on irctc.co.in will be able to open his account for booking of e-tickets only once. Multiple sessions with single user ID cannot be opened thereby enabling maximum users to access website and reduce congestion.

9. Captcha has been put and strengthened for booking in the ‘Plan My Travel’ to check fraudulent booking through automation software.
(CAPTCHAs is a technology used in attempts to prevent automated software from performing actions which degrade the quality of service of a given system)

10. Quick Book Option and Cash Cards option has been stopped between 10.00 A.M. to 12.00 A.M.

11. An IT-Anti Fraud Squad has been created at Internet Ticketing Centre to detect cases of fraud and fraudulent activity and also for constant cyberspace surveillance to detect possible threats to the system.

12. Upon receipt of complaint against the sub-agent, the user –id is deactivated and the sub-agent is black-listed. The details of the black-listed agent are put on the IRCTC website. All the Principal Agents have been instructed not to take on such black-listed agents.

13. For any complaint, against the e-ticket agents, one may contact [email protected] (011-23745962) or [email protected] (011-39340000)

14. The Ministry of Railways has also initiated steps to augment e-ticket handling capacity of its website through short term and long term measures. Both IRCTC and CRIS are working jointly in this direction. Due to these steps, the present e-ticket capacity will increase from existing about 3.5 lakh bookings to around 5 lakh bookings per day in about four months period in the short term which will further be increased to about 8 lakh bookings per day in the long term plan.