February 7, 2016
New Delhi: Rail passengers will be allowed to book e-tickets online through the railway website only six times in a month instead of the existing limit of 10, from February 15. Tickets are booked on the website of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).
According to Railway Ministry officials, this has been done to prevent misuse of online booking facility as it has been felt that a genuine passenger does not require to book tickets online for more than six times in a month, based on an analysis of usage of quota of booking 10 tickets in a month.
The Railways' argument is that the analysis indicated that 90 per cent of users were
booking upto six tickets in a given month and only 10 per cent were booking more than
six and therefore it was suspected that the 10 per cent users might be involved in
touting activities.
In order to deter such touts and to facilitate genuine users, it has been decided that a maximum of six tickets can be booked by a user in a month.
The IRCTC has already put in place various checks for the online booking on its
website like only two tickets can be booked by an individual using his or her user-id in a day for advance reservation booking from 8 am to 10 am. Individuals are allowed to book only two tickets per user-id in a day for Tatkal booking from 10 am to 12 noon. Quick Book option also remains disabled from 8 am to 12 noon. All ticketing agents have been barred from booking tickets from 8 am to 8.30 am for general bookings, from 10 am to 10.30 am and 11 am to 11.30 am for Tatkal booking in AC and non-AC classes, respectively. Booking is not allowed through e-wallet and cash cards from 8 am to 12 noon. There is only one booking in one user login session except for
return/onward journey between 8 am and 12 noon.