Have you ever been frustrated trying to book Tatkal tickets? It seems that the website will just not open. Most people blame Indian Railways for not maintaining their website well. But the truth of the matter is: any website will crash if there are thousands of visitors all trying to perform a crucial action at the same time. Yes, Indian Railways agents such as IRCTC sites are visited by millions of people for ticket booking purposes. And the website supports the needs throughout the day, all but the wee Tatkal booking hours.
This has finally come to the attention of Indian Railways decision makers and they have decided to compartmentalize the Tatkal booking hours. Now, Indian Railways has created two booking slots, one for the Non-AC passengers and one for AC passengers. Under the revised scheme of things, reservations under the Tatkal booking scheme will open at 10 AM every day. Bookings can be done on the day before your journey, either from a nearby station (with the facility) or online. While the non-AC passengers will have to wait for another hour, as their bookings will commence from 11 AM.
It is a good step taken by Indian Railways. In the earlier days, booking for all the classes commenced and ended at the same time. By creating separate schedules for the classes, Indian Railways has made sure that everyone has a fair chance for booking tickets. This change will reduce the load on IRCTC website server and people can book tickets smoothly. It will also have an impressive effect on reducing the rush at ticketing counters at major stations.
Another amendment under the Tatkal scheme does not auger well for ticketing agents such as IRCTC. The IRCTC agents have been debarred from tickets booking in the first 30 minutes of opening the bookings. Thus, IRCTC will be barred from booking tickets for general bookings from 8-8:30 AM, while they cannot book Tatkal tickets from 10-10:30 and 11-11:30 AM.
These norms have been in effect from June 15. These norms will surely ease the ticket booking tensions of the normal passengers in the Tatkal booking hours. But before you book a ticket under the Tatkal scheme, you need to choose a train with great track record. You can start by creating a list of trains between two stations, and then move ahead to check Indian railways time table to shortlist trains that match your time criteria. After this you can use the RailYatri app to monitor the train running status or arrival and departure of trains to understand whether the train you are choosing is punctual or a latecomer.
Apart from this, you can use the RailYatri app to receive notifications about train schedule changes or new trains added to a route, etc. This information will help you plan a trip well.
IRCTC website is not a professionally designed website and thus fails to manage transaction load. Majority of hits making enquiry are unnecessary handled by the website. Further, there is no one who can consolidate the suggestions given by people to modify the software for user friendly approach eg people have been harping to avoid captcha during tatkal booking to save time but till date nothing has been done. This sort of adhoc functioning for an organization like Indian Railway is not understood. Any way let’s see how many days this works.
Thank you! Very informative.