The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website and mobile application suffered an unexpected outage on Saturday morning. Several users complained that they were unable to receive or view tickets on the screen. Others said that they were facing a technical issue and were not able to make payment.
According to the tracking website Downdetector.com, many users face issues accessing IRCTC website a mobile app. The latest update by the tracking website shows that over 200 users faced issues while booking tickets from IRCTC services.
IRCTC Website Down: Netizen React
On microblogging platform X, one user wrote, “”Hey @IRCTCofficial, why does your website go down for 5 mins during tatkal booking, allowing touts to grab all tickets? Is this a collusion? @RailMinIndia & @Central_Railway, please investigate & resolve this issue! #IRCTC #TatkalTicket #RailwayReform”
“What is WRONG with this IRCTC website? I cleared the cache, closed & opened the browser, and restarted the machine. Tried the above process for multiple days & HARD LUCK.”, asked another.
“What a sham IRCTC booking systems are. Till 10:10, it’s stuck here. Why fetching all stations in app when it’s peak time. I had app already opened but was kicked out just before 10 am saying “service is unavailable”. Agents can book, not common man.” pointed out another X user.
One Sanjay Singh took to X to inform, “@RailMinIndia@IRCTCofficial #IRCTC #RailwayTechIssue logged into the IRCTC app at 9:57 AM to book a 3AC ticket. Until 9:59, the app was working fine, but as soon as 10:00 AM hit, it just kept loading, then threw me out of the portal.”
IRCTC New Advance Booking Rules
The Indian Railways has made a significant change to its ticketing policy, i.e. by reducing the advance reservation period (ARP) for train tickets from 120 days to now 60 days. This new rule takes effect from November 1, 2024.
- Existing bookings made under the 120-day advance reservation period before October 31, 2024, will remain valid. Reservations made beyond the new ARP of 60 days will still be eligible for cancellation.
- The ministry added that the new policy aims to tackle the issue of passengers not showing up without canceling tickets, which often leads to impersonation and fraud.
- Notably, the ministry in its statement also mentioned that during 1995-1998, advance reservation period was as low as 30 days.