Wrong procedure in Tatkal booking leads to cancellation of log-in ids

In a rush to book Tatkal tickets during the festive reason, one needs to be careful with the procedures. In a reply to a Right to Information (RTI) query, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) has informed that the log-in id of the user automatically gets cancelled if wrong procedure is followed.

 “Your log-in id was cancelled as you saved the data before the booking time of Tatkal tickets and uploaded it. This is prohibited as per the standard booking procedure of Tatkal tickets,” said an RTI reply signed by Mritunjay Tiwari, Public Information Officer and Joint General Manager of IRCTC. The information was provided on September 22 to aggrieved user Praveen Chandra Rai.

 “They initially did not provide the information then I filed an appeal with the First Appellate Authority which resulted in this information. However, I am not satisfied as the information is incomplete,” said Rai, adding that he would approach Central Information Commission.

 Rai informed that it was in July that his log-in id was blocked by IRCTC and the message ‘booking facility is not permitted’ was flashed on his page.

“They have now revoked the cancellation of the log-in id and it’s now functional,” he added. IRCTC, however, did not provide the information on a number of log-in ids suspended by them. The agency had 4.7 crore users on August 31 of this year.

According to the information provided by IRCTC, in the financial year 2015-16 the agency provided service to 19.88 crore users out of which over 15.97 crore were confirmed tickets while the remaining rest were in waiting. 

Similarly, in fiscal 2014-15, 14.99 crore confirmed and 3.3 crore waiting tickets were booked through IRCTC. The agency had 1,472 employees in 2015-16 out of which 1,420 were permanent, 1,795 were temporary and 52 were on deputation. Of 1,472 personnel in 2015-16, 118 were women.