The Financial Express : Feb 19, 2020, 11:38 AM
Big news for Indian Railways passengers! Now, forget your worries over last-minute bookings as more number of IRCTC tatkal tickets will be available! In a huge passenger-friendly initiative, Indian Railways has removed all illegal software and arrested as many as 60 agents who were using them to block the tatkal tickets. Arun Kumar, Director General, Railway Protection Force (RPF) was quoted in a PTI report saying that the Indian Railways’ cleansing operation will now lead to more tatkal tickets being available for hours, as compared to a minute or two earlier, after the booking opens.According to Indian Railways officials, the illegal software such as the ‘ANMS’, ‘MAC’ and ‘Jaguar’ were bypassing the IRCTC’s login captcha, booking captcha as well as the bank OTP, in order to generate the tickets, while a genuine user would go through all of these processes. The ticket booking process for a general user usually takes around 2.55 minutes, but those who use these software would do it in just around 1.48 minutes, the officials added.Indian Railways does not allow the agents to illegally book the tatkal tickets and over the past two months, the RPF officials have nabbed as many as 60 illegal agents who were booking the tickets through these illegal software. This was making it virtually impossible for the genuine users to get the tatkal bookings.The Director General, RPF announced at a press briefing that as of today, not even one ticket is being booked through the illegal software. The concerned officials have weeded out all the issues which were existing earlier with the IRCTC website and the top operators of the illegal software have also been arrested. Most of the illegal software, which used to generate a business of Rs 50 crore-100 crore annually with the tatkal booking process, have been blocked.The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) is the e-ticketing arm of Indian Railways. On the official website, IRCTC’s train ticket booking section now reflects the impact of this step, as it shows a jump in the availability of the tatkal tickets across the board.Incidentally, these results of tatkal availability were shown in some of the train services. On October 26, 2019, the tatkal tickets were available for two minutes for the Magadh Express. But, on February 10, 2020, they were available for over a duration of 10 hours since the bookings opened on February 9, 2020, for the particular train. Similarly, for the Sampoorna Kranti Express, the tatkal tickets were available for a little over four minutes on November 16, 2019. But, on February 8, 2020, the tatkal tickets were available for 18 minutes.Meanwhile, the RPF is still monitoring some of the other softwares which can be used to book tickets, and a similar action might be taken if tickets will be booked illegally