Mumbai: Every day, around 2,25,000 passengers book Tatkal tickets through the online platform of Indian Railways. An analysis of the online Tatkal ticket booking pattern from 24 May to 2 June revealed that, on average, only 5,615 out of 1,08,000 AC class tickets were booked in the first minute after the window opened.
However, 22,827 tickets were booked in the second minute. In the AC class, an average of 67,159 tickets were booked online within the first 10 minutes of the window opening, representing 62.5% of all tickets booked online. Rest 37.5% tickets were booked between 10 minutes till chart preparation in which 3.01% of Tatkal tickets were booked after 10 hours of the window opening.
In the non-AC category, from 24 May to 2 June, an average of 1,18,567 tickets were booked online daily. Of these, 4,724 tickets — about 4% — were booked within the first minute, while 20,786 tickets — about 17.5% — were booked in the second minute.
Approximately 66.4% of tickets were sold within the first 10 minutes after the window opened. Additionally, approximately 84.02% of tickets were sold within the first hour of the window opening, with the remaining tickets sold over the next 10 hours.
This clearly shows that Tatkal tickets are made available to passengers through the online system, and around 12% of Tatkal tickets are still booked 8 to 10 hours after the window opens.
The railways have launched a campaign against the use of automated tools to book tickets online, employing artificial intelligence for this effort. Through special monitoring efforts, the railways have deactivated and blocked over 24 million users in the past six months.
Additionally, around 2 million other accounts have been flagged as suspicious and are under investigation based on their Aadhaar and other documents. Currently, there are more than 130 million active subscribers on the IRCTC website, of which only 12 million are Aadhaar-verified.
IRCTC has decided to conduct special verification for all accounts that are not authenticated with Aadhaar. Accounts found to be suspicious will be closed. The railways aim to ensure that genuine passengers receive all type of Tatkal tickets.
Account holders who link their accounts with Aadhaar will get priority booking during the first 10 minutes of Tatkal ticket sales. Even authorized IRCTC agents are not allowed to book tickets within the first 10 minutes of the Tatkal window opening. Therefore, it has become necessary to verify your IRCTC account through Aadhaar.
The Railways is planning to make the Tatkal ticketing process more robust by making some of the rules more stringent, like only Aadhar verified accounts will be allowed to book online Tatkal tickets, Aadhar based OTP authentication shall also be required for booking. Sources said that counter based tatkal ticket may also be booked after Aadhar verification to control malpractices.
