People are complaining that despite repeated attempts, tatkal tickets cannot be booked on the website

Moneylife Digital Team

Even as public outrage is perceptible, the Railways appears to be cocooned in a bubble. Despite regular complaints over the booking of tatkal tickets on the website of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), nothing has been done to resolve this issue.

Moneylife recently reported how the Indian Railways is hoarding seats through the tatkal scheme, depriving passengers who try to book tickets well in advance. Comments are coming in about how the tatkal system is manipulated. (Read,
'Increased allocation under tatkal deprives regular rail travellers of confirmed seats', )

People are complaining that it is nearly impossible to book a tatkal ticket during the specific allotted time. The site does not respond in the stipulated time and by the time it does, the tickets are already sold out. Under the tatkal scheme, bookings open at 8am, two days before the actual date of the journey.

Moneylife has consistently maintained that the current tatkal system is being gamed by touts and agents and that all the seats vanish, no sooner the tatkal reservation window is opened. Therefore, travellers are unable to book tickets on their own and they have to depend on agents who charge higher rates and a commission.

In one of our earlier articles we had also written about how the travel website makemytrip.com had advertised that it is the 'fastest' channel to book tatkal tickets, even as IRCTC's website provides the same facility. (Read, 'Can makemytrip.com make its customer's day?')

According to Dipak Gandhi, chairman, Mumbai Suburban Railway Passengers' Association, "Tatkal is nothing but official black-marketing by the Railways. The website is not accessible as railway officials are hand-in-glove with agents who book all the tickets and then charge more from the public for the same ticket."

"There is some scandal going on for tatkal online booking. This is experienced and echoed by all," says a reader. "When one tries to book a tatkal ticket through IRCTC, it allows to book only from 8 am onwards. So one waits for the exact time and the moment you try to book, the site will not respond. All your attempts will fail till around 20 minutes, by which time all tatkal tickets are gone, and only then are you able to access it, and you only get waitlisted tickets."

Consumer discussion forums on the internet are flooded with complaints against the tatkal system. People are either unable to access their account despite using the correct username and password, or they are simply unable to access the website during the given time.

Rajaram Bojji, former managing director of the Konkan Railway and inventor of the anti-collision device, in his reply to Moneylife about the tatkal mess, said, "Those in the Railways must have found an indirect route to realise higher revenues without increasing the fares over the last seven years, simply by increasing the quota under tatkal. Reasonable I feel, because the fares of passenger tickets were kept the same with a proud announcement by each political master."

Mr Gandhi, explained, "On one side they create artificial scarcity and on the other hand charge extra money for tatkal. The number of coaches allocated for tatkal is taken from the original available coaches of general quota, which is why people cannot get their confirmation of the wait-listed ticket."

Moneylife is in the process of finding out more about the trains on which more seats are allocated to tatkal than for the general quota. Rakesh Agrawal, a reader, informs us about one more train, the Pune-Lucknow Express, where tatkal gets preference. For the train service on 15 April 2011, 216 seats are currently allotted to tatkal, whereas there is already a waiting list of 274 seats in the general quota.

Meanwhile, an e-mail has been sent to IRCTC asking whether officials are aware about the complaints by people, who are unable to book tickets under the tatkal scheme, and if anything is being done to resolve the issues. While there has been no reply to the questions till the time of writing this report, we did receive an automated reply that stated, "Your ticket has been assigned an ID of [IRCTC #1919526]."