Indian Railways New Rules: This document must for Tatkal ticket booking

Indian Railways has taken a big step to make Tatkal ticket booking transparent and more convenient for common passengers. Now, e-Aadhaar based authentication is being made mandatory for booking Tatkal tickets through IRCTC account. Indian Railways New Rules: This document must for Tatkal ticket booking.

This change, which will come into effect soon, aims to stop fraud, prioritize genuine passengers, and crack down on ticket brokers. Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnav has confirmed that the railway ticket booking system will be made more secure and fair through e-Aadhaar authentication.

From now on, only users whose IRCTC accounts are linked to Aadhaar will be able to book Tatkal tickets. Aadhaar-based OTP verification will also be required at the time of booking.

Tatkal ticket booking new rules:

Only Aadhaar verified accounts will be allowed to book tatkal tickets.

Only verified users will get priority for the first 10 minutes of booking.

IRCTC agents will also not be allowed to book tickets in the first 10 minutes.

Aadhaar verification can also be made mandatory while purchasing tickets from the counter.

Why was this step necessary?

Currently, out of over 13 crore users of IRCTC, only 1.2 crore people have verified Aadhaar. The Railways has decided that special monitoring will be done on accounts not linked to Aadhaar.

If any suspicious activity is found in any account, it will be closed. This change is important in the direction of giving fair opportunity to common passengers for Tatkal tickets.

Interesting pattern seen in Tatkal ticket booking

Analysis of the booking data by the Railways from May 24 to June 2 revealed some shocking facts:

AC Category:

An average of only 5,615 tickets were booked in the first minute.

22,827 tickets were booked in the second minute.

Overall, 67,159 AC tickets were sold in the first 10 minutes – 62.5% of total online bookings.

Non-AC Category:

4% of tickets (4,724) were booked in the first minute.

About 66.4% of the tickets were sold in the first 10 minutes.

Even after 8 to 10 hours, about 12% of Tatkal tickets were booked.

This data clearly shows how most tickets are lost in the first few minutes – this is the time when automated tools are most likely to be abused.

Railways are now using artificial intelligence and surveillance systems to curb this.

What action has been taken so far?

Railways has blocked 2.4 crore fake or suspicious IRCTC accounts in the last 6 months. This is a historic initiative to take the country’s largest online ticket booking system in the right direction.

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