Gandhinagar: Western Railway has announced a major change to the Tatkal booking system in line with new guidelines issued by the Railway Board. Under the revised process, Tatkal tickets will be issued only after verification of a system-generated One Time Password sent to the mobile number provided by the passenger at the time of booking. The ticket will be confirmed only after successful OTP authentication.

According to a statement from Vineet Abhishek, Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway which covers Gujarat, the system was first introduced on the Mumbai Central–Ahmedabad Shatabdi Express from December 1 and will now be extended to additional trains starting December 5.

The trains covered under the new system with effect from December five include the Mumbai Central–Indore Duronto Express, Mumbai Central–Hisar Duronto Express, Mumbai Central–Hapa Duronto Express, Ahmedabad–Pune Duronto Express, Sabarmati–Jodhpur Vande Bharat, Mumbai Central–New Delhi Rajdhani Tejas, Mumbai Central–Hazrat Nizamuddin AK Rajdhani Tejas Express, and Sabarmati–New Delhi Rajdhani Express.

The OTP verification requirement will apply to Tatkal bookings made through PRS counters, authorized agents, the IRCTC website, and the IRCTC mobile app. Western Railway stated that the aim of the new system is to bring greater transparency to Tatkal bookings and ensure smoother access to tickets for genuine passengers. DeshGujarat