New Delhi: More ‘Tatkal’ tickets will be available for passengers now as the Indian Railways has weeded out illegal softwares and arrested 60 agents who would use those to block such tickets, a top official said Tuesday.
Railway Protection Force (RPF) Director General Arun Kumar said the cleansing operation means Tatkal tickets would be available for passengers for hours now, compared to a minute or two earlier after the booking usually opens.
Officials explained that illegal softwares such as ‘ANMS’, ‘MAC’ and ‘Jaguar’ would bypass the IRCTC’s login captcha, booking captcha and bank OTP to generate tickets, while a genuine user has to go through all these processes. The booking process for a general user usually takes around 2.55 minutes, but those using these softwares could do it in just around 1.48 minutes, they explained.
“As of today, I can say that not one ticket is being booked through illegal software. We have plugged all the issues that we had with the IRCTC website and also nabbed most of those who were top operators of the software,” the RPF DG said at a press briefing.
With the arrests, Kumar said most of these illegal software, which used to generate business of Rs 50 crore – Rs 100 crore annually, have been blocked.
The IRCTC’s ticket booking section reflects the impact of the railway action as it shows a jump in the availability of Tatkal tickets across the board.
For example, while October 26, 2019, Tatkal tickets were available for two minutes for the Magadh Express, February 10, they were available for over 10 hours since the bookings opened February 9, 2020 on the train.
Similarly, on the Sampoorna Kranti Express, Tatkal tickets were available for a little over four minutes November 16, 2019, while February 8, 2020, there were available for 18 minutes.
PTI
