The railway authorities have found that many of these tickets were booked using automated tools or bots. To stop this, the Railways has blocked over 2.4 crore suspicious IRCTC accounts in the past six months. Another 20 lakh accounts are under review, based on Aadhaar and other documents, an official statement said
The decision was taken after millions of suspicious accounts were found using unfair methods to book tickets, an official statement said. Representational Pic/File
Indian Railways has started a strict campaign to stop the misuse of its Tatkal ticket booking system and on Thursday warned that Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) accounts not linked with Aadhaar may be closed soon.
The decision was taken after millions of suspicious accounts were found using unfair methods to book tickets, an official statement said.
Every day, around 2.25 lakh passengers book Tatkal tickets online. A recent study of ticket bookings between May 24 and June 2 shows that most AC and non-AC class Tatkal tickets are booked within the first 10 minutes of the booking window opening, it said.
According to the official statement, in the AC category, only about 5,615 out of 1.08 lakh tickets were booked in the first minute, but over 22,800 tickets were booked in the second minute. Over 62.5 per cent of AC Tatkal tickets were booked in the first 10 minutes, and 3 per cent were booked even 10 hours later.
For non-AC tickets, an average of 1.18 lakh were booked online daily during this time. Of these, 4 per cent were booked in the first minute and 17.5 per cent in the second minute, while 66.4 per cent were booked in the first 10 minutes, it said.
The statement further said that the railway authorities have found that many of these tickets were booked using automated tools or bots. To stop this, the Railways has blocked over 2.4 crore suspicious IRCTC accounts in the past six months. Another 20 lakh accounts are under review, based on Aadhaar and other documents.
At present, only 1.2 crore out of 13 crore active IRCTC users have Aadhaar-verified accounts. IRCTC is now asking all users to verify their accounts using Aadhaar. If not, accounts may be closed, especially if found suspicious.
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.
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